Speed of sound Definition and 271 Threads

Hi! Last Week we did a Physics lab on Speed of Sound. Two wooden sticks were banged against each other at a distance of 100 m from the wall(Then we went to 200 m, 300m and finally 400m) and the echo was heard and time was measured using a stopwatch. It was a rainy day. Can anybody suggest me...

Hi. I have been given the task to measure the speed of sound in air. The materials available are: 1. Microphone 2. Signal Generator 3. Amplifier 4. Digital Oscilloscope I have looked through google and the simplest exp involves a loudspeaker as well. However I don't have one...

I need sources of error (4) , and some enhancements for accuracy (4) for a lab experiment involving speed of sound. The experiment is as follows (as I have done it) 1. Using water to move a tube up/down to look for the first antinode. 2. Used a 512 Hz tuning fork to create the vibrations. 3...

The question in the title. Speed of sound in a medium obviously must be less than the speed of light. Speed of sound is usually given by the equation sqrt(c/p). Wondering what causes this to always be less than the speed of light. Gar. Just realized something as I'm typing this. Now that I...

Hi all, quick problem I'm having trouble with. Oil explorers set off explosives to make louds sounds, then listens for the echoes from underground oil deposits. Geologists suspect that there is oil under 500-m deep lake physics. It's known that lake physics is carved out of a granite basin...

Hi all, just a question I am having trouble with 1.) You're watching a carpenter pound a nail. He hits the nail twice a second, but you hear the sound of the strike when his hammer is fully raised. What is the minimum distance from you to the carpenter? assume the air temperature is 20...

Homework Statement The speed of sound in fresh water at 293k is 1482 m/s. At what temperature is the speed of sound in helium gas the same as that of fresh water at 293k? Helium is considered a monatomic ideal gas (y = 1.67 and atomic mass = 4.003u). A)442K B)377K C)525K D)313K E)633K...

Hi, could you please help me with my homework? I want to determine the height of mountain (from foot to peak) using the speed of sound. Homework Statement Known data: time delay, height1, temp1 plus known dependence between the height and temperature. What I want to determine: height2...

drunken musings... if i was sat on the wing of a jet traveling at mach2 would i be able to hear the the noise of the engine behind me?

The speed of sound at 0°C in open air is 331.3 m/sec. At what temperature would the wavelength of a 440 Hz sound wave be 0.82 meters? Equation to find the speed of sound: Vт = Vo √(T/273) T = 273 + t(°C) My calculations: Vт = 440 Hz (0.82 m) = 360.8 m/s Vт = Vo √(T/273) 360.8 m/s = 331.3...

1. I am a mathematician trying to understand a physics experiment where an aluminum rod is held in the middle and struck with a mallet. The rod is then placed next to a microphone, the sound recorded and the frequency determined using Audacity. Working backwards, one determines the speed of...

Can anyone show that the speed of sound, or rather, speed of low-energy mechanical waves follows the relationship: a2 = ( bulk modulus / density ) This holds for sound waves, and is also similar to the waves on strings formula. Can anyone show how this is derived? I read a book and they...

Homework Statement The speed of sound in the air is proportional to the square root of the absolute temperature. At 20 °C the speed of sound is 343 m/s. Homework Equations What is the speed of sound at –10 °C? (0 °C = 273 K). The Attempt at a Solution speed of sound= x*\sqrt{}T...

Homework Statement Imagine that the source is to the right of the listener, so that the positive reference direction (from the listener to the source) is in the +\hat{x} direction. If the listener is stationary, what value does f_L approach as the source's speed approaches the speed of sound...

Hi all, Sorry if this post is a bit wordy but I've been going round in circles and I thought I'd see if anyone on here can help, it's also my first post so be nice... I've been trying to understand how Newton miscalculated the speed of sound. I know that he thought that the propagation of...

Hi guys, I have problems with a high-school assignment: Homework Statement http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/3748/74698735.png An experimenter tries to determine the speed of sound in air. He tries to lower and elevate the water in the tube at the same time as he hits on the fork, until...

I am trying to control the speed at which a sound vibration takes to travel the length of a plane/plank. I have a plastic choppingboard, at one end is a contact microphone at the other end I tap the choppingboard to create a vibration. Now, I want the sound to travel very slowly across the...

Hi! Consider a high-speed camera set up to record an explosion and the resulting shockwave emanating from the explosion. In the same frame you can see the shock wave as well as people in the distance. Is it true that the people in the distance wouldn't hear the sound of the explosion until...

Homework Statement I am so confused with speed of sound. would sound travel faster in cold or warm air? if you put mathmatical equation in, v= 331 + (0.59Tc) then it would travel faster in warm air. but another theory says that sound travels faster in denser medium and cold air is denser...

Speed of sound! Why does sound travel faster through warm air then cold air? -_-

Homework Statement If you had data from a lot of different frequencies, how could you use a slope to find the speed of sound? Explain in detail. Given/Known: So basically we did a lab where we used 3 different tuning forks and hit them over a tube filled with water. We recorded where we...

I understand that for normal atmospheric conditions the speed of sound is relative to the temperature. I also understand that the equation uses the input temperature to first figure the density of air. But my question has to do with the effect of high pressure, we'll say above atmospheric to...

Homework Statement shoot a ball at a drum 65.8 meters away from you. you hear the impact .72 seconds later. if the speed of sound on that day was 340m/s how fast must the ball be traveling? Homework Equations speed=distance/time The Attempt at a Solution i found that the ball was...

Homework Statement A stone is dropped from rest at the opening of a well, 2.40s later a splash is heard. how deep is the well? given that speed of sound is 336m/s. Homework Equations xf=xi+vit+1/2at2 The Attempt at a Solution What does one do to account for the time it takes for...

Homework Statement A rock is dropped from a sea cliff, and the sound of it striking the ocean is heard 3.7s later. If the speed of sound is 340m.s how high is cliff? Homework Equations Ttotal=trock+tsound distance=Vsound*tsound ts=340m/s-trock x=x+vt+.5at^2 quadratic equation...

Homework Statement It is well known that the speed of sound in air is u = 330m/s at STP. What this means is that sound travels at speed u in all directions in the frame S where the air is at rest. In any other frame S', moving relative to S, its speed it not u in all directions. To verify this...

Speed of sound through a plate! Hi, I wanted to know the formula for the transverse velocity and longitudinal velocity of sound through a rectangular plate. Any help will be greatly appreciated!.. Thanks

Homework Statement We have to prove the speed of sound using a ultra-sound emitter, connected to EasySense software which records the speed for it to travel to surface and back. Known data - Speed of sound is 337 metres a second at 20 degrees celcius. Also, the distance covered is, 3.4m or...

This just occurred to me a few minutes ago, sorry if it's a dumb question:' Why is the speed of sound constant in an ideal gas? Suppose you have a box with an ideal mono atomic gas and a diaphragm that can oscillate. The diaphragm busts one move at ~3000 m/s. Since collisions with ideal...

What is the temp. of dry air if the speed of sound is 339 m/s? I have been using this formula: v = 331 x (temp./273 + 1) I've tried for at least 2 hours and cannot get the answer. Please help me.

Homework Statement A cowboy stands on horizontal ground between two parallel vertical cliffs. He is not midway between the cliffs. He fires a shot and hears it echoes. The second echo arrives 1.92s after the first and 1.47s before the third. Consider only the sound traveling parallel to the...

1. The equation given in my Physics text for the speed of sound through air at a given temperature v = (331.5 + 0.606T) m/sec where T is degrees Celsius According to this equation, there is a theoretical temperature at which the speed of sound would reach c: 331.5 + 0.606T = c = 3.00...

Homework Statement For my physics lab, we have to calculate the speed of sound through steel and aluminum based on an experiment we did using a microphone and a program called Logger Pro. The resulting graphs gave the frequency of the sound of the aluminum rod as 2109.38 Hz, and the frequency...

Homework Statement I'm struggling to understand the relationship between the Debye temperature and the speed of sound in a substance. An example problem given is: Estimate the Debye Temperature of Silicon and Lead, given that their respective speeds of sound are 9150 m/s and 1320 m/s. (not...

Homework Statement I want to carry out an experiment in order to make accurate measurement of the speed of sound in air. Method: We will measure the speed of sound waves in air by measuring the time required for a short sound pulse to travel from its source to a receiver. This time...

Homework Statement Calculate the speed of sound waves in hydrogen gas (M = 2.00 g/mol and γ = 1.40) at T = 300 K. Homework Equations v = root (γRT/M) The Attempt at a Solution I keep getting 1321.4km/s but its not being acccepted (automated homework) so I am pretty sure this...

I have built a loading machine for testing material properties. It applies tension at slow rates (ie 1htz) under load control until the specimen fails. One thing I noticed is that if I tap the material as it is loaded, it seems to give off a different pitch noise when it is under higher tension...

[b]1. You perform an experiment with a long column of air and a tuning fork. The column of air is defined by a very long vertical plastic tube with a circular cross section; the upper end of the tube is open to the outside air and the lower end of the tube is filled with water. The column of air...

I don't need help with a numerical solution here - mostly a concept check. I've been asked to calculate the speed of sound in metallic sodium at T = 0 K using Fermi-Dirac statistics. After doing so, I get a speed of 14.5 meters per second, which is, well, really slow. I would have...

Homework Statement A bowling ball traveling at constant speed hits the pins at the end of a bowling lane 16.5m long. The bowler hears the sound of the ball hit the pins 2.5 seconds after the ball is released. What is the speed of the ball? Homework Equations Distance=16.5m Time=2.5 s...

A sound wave produced by a smoke alarm 35.0 m away is heard 0.103 s after having been started by smoke in the air. The frequency of this sound wave is 1.02  103 Hz. Complete the following. a.Find the speed of this sound wave in air. b. Find its wavelength and period. The sound...

Homework Statement One end of a plastic tube, open at both ends, is placed into a large container of water. A 256 Hz tuning fork, continuously vibrating, is held over the end of the tube in the air and the tube is raised until maximum loudness is observed. The plastic tube is then raised...

Homework Statement A 256 Hz tuning fork produces the first harmonic in a tube filled with air and having one closed and one open end. If the tube were filled with helium where the speed of sound is 965 m/sec, what frequency would be needed to produce the first harmonic? Assume the speed of...

So the question is, How would I go about identifying an unknown monatomic gas if you have measured its temperature and the speed of sound in the gas. I was thinking of using the ideal gas law to determine mass of a single molecule in kilograms or its molar mass, then from there somehow...

Homework Statement Show that v = \sqrt{B/\rho} Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution Let the density of the medium be ρ. Suppose you have a single pulse of a longitudinal wave inside a pipe traveling with speed v. At any time, consider the location of the pulse...

I've been reading about inflation and i encountered that one can always define the sound's speed as c_s^2 \equiv \frac{\partial_X P}{\partial_X \rho} where X \equiv \frac{1}{2} g^{ab} \partial_a \phi \partial_b \phi. In the case of a canonical scalar field P=X-V and \rho=X+V, so c_s^2=1...

Homework Statement A flutist assembles her flute in a room where the speed of sound is 340 m/s. When she plays the note A, it is in perfect tune with a 440 Hz tuning fork. After a few minutes, the air inside her flute has warmed to where the speed of sound is 347 . How many beats per...

Homework Statement What characteristics of a sound (such as frequency and wavelength) change for the speed of sound to change in each medium? Why do these characteristics change? For example: Why does the pitch of sound produced by pouring water into a tube increase as more water is poured in...

Homework Statement To find the height of a cliff, you drop a rock from the top and 10s ater, you hear the sound of it hitting the ground at the foot of the cliff. Ignoring air resistance, how high is the cliff if the speed of sound is 330m/s. Homework Equations Xf = Xo = VoT + 1/2aT^2...

Homework Statement To find the height of a cliff, you drop a rock from the top, and 10s later, hear the sound of it hitting the ground at the foot of the cliff. ignoring air resistance, how high is the cliff if the speed of sound is 330m/s Homework Equations Xf = Xo +Vo(t) + 1/2at^2...