Unit 4 · 5 lessons
Waves and Sound
How a disturbance travels without carrying matter with it, how waves add and interfere, and how sound is produced, measured and heard.
- 52 practice questions
- 53 flashcards
- 3 interactive lessons
Lessons
- 1Wave Anatomy and the Wave EquationThe vocabulary for describing any wave, the difference between transverse and longitudinal, and the one equation that ties speed, frequency and wavelength together.Interactive10 questions
- 2The Speed of Sound, Echoes and Mach NumberHow temperature changes the speed of sound, how to turn an echo into a distance, and what it means to go supersonic.10 questions
- 3Reflection, Superposition and BeatsWhat happens where two waves meet, why a reflected pulse sometimes flips, and the pulsing you hear from two nearly equal frequencies.Interactive10 questions
- 4Resonance, Harmonics, Intensity and HearingStanding waves in strings and pipes, why closed pipes skip every second harmonic, and how sound intensity falls off and is measured in decibels.Interactive10 questions
- 5Sound in Technology, Medicine and the EnvironmentUltrasound above the range of hearing, how an echo time becomes a medical image, and how rooms, noise and hearing protection are engineered around sound.12 questions