Monday, April 8, 2013

Experiment 5: Introduction to Sound


Introduction: The purpose of this lab is to record different sound waves and analyze the differences in their wavelengths, amplitudes, and frequencies.

Procedure: Have a person say aaaaaa into a microphone and collect the sound wave data.
We then had a different person say aaaaaaaaa into the microphone and recorded the data
We then struck a tuning fork hard and then soft and recorded both results in a microphone
Data:
First person's voice
Second person's voice
Tuning fork struck hard
Tuning fork struck soft
Analysis: 
1-a) The wave is periodic because of its definite repeating pattern
1-b) We determined four waves by only counting the completed ones
1-c) The sound was only captured for .03 seconds so about a blink of an eye
1-d) The period is 7.5 x 10^-3 seconds. This was decided upon by counting the number of waves and dividing the total time of the sample by that number
1-e) Frequency is 1/period = 133 Hz
1-f) velocity=wavelength x frequency so wavelength=velocity/frequency which is 2.55 meters; about the length of a lab desk
1-g) The amplitude can not be determined because there is nothing to reference it against, but there was an arbitrary pressure of about 2.7.
1-h) The only thing that would change is the amount of waves on the graph. Everything else would stay relatively unchanged.
2) Period=1.67 x 10^-3, frequency=600 Hz, nearly 4 times greater than the first, wavelength=0.567 m, nearly 4 times shorter than the first, amplitude is roughly the same.
3) Period=3.75 x 10^-3, frequency=2.67 Hz, wavelength=1.275 m. The wave is much smoother and uniform than a human voice.
4) Nothing changed but the amplitude and the smooth nature of the wave. We hit the fork on a softer object to make it softer.

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