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In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain. [1]
Examples of acoustic waves include audible sound from speakers, seismic waves causing ground vibrations, and ultrasound used for medical imaging. Understanding acoustic waves is crucial in fields like acoustics, physics, engineering, and medicine, with applications in sound design, noise reduction, and diagnostic imaging.
Rarefaction waves expand with time (much like sea waves spread out as they reach a beach); in most cases rarefaction waves keep the same overall profile ('shape') at all times throughout the wave's movement: it is a self-similar expansion. Each part of the wave travels at the local speed of sound, in the local medium.
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer .
In physics, sound energy is a form of energy that can be heard by living things. Only those waves that have a frequency of 16 Hz to 20 kHz are audible to humans. However, this range is an average and will slightly change from individual to individual.
A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases, is a good visualization. Real-world examples include sound waves (vibrations in pressure, a particle of displacement, and particle velocity propagated in an elastic medium) and seismic P waves (created by earthquakes and explosions).
In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the fundamental frequency of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the 1st harmonic; the other harmonics are known as higher harmonics.
While 1 atm (194 dB peak or 191 dB SPL) [11] [12] is the largest pressure variation an undistorted sound wave can have in Earth's atmosphere (i. e., if the thermodynamic properties of the air are disregarded; in reality, the sound waves become progressively non-linear starting over 150 dB), larger sound waves can be present in other atmospheres ...