Question

Physics 211L Prelab Questions                   Lab #14 “Resonant Air Columns”

1) What medium do the sound waves travel through this experiment?

2) Define a “standing wave”.

3) What is “resonance”? How will we know when we are at resonance in this experiment? Give another example of a resonance phenomenon.

4) Why would this experiment not work very well with a 60Hz tuning fork?

5) Write the formula that relates the frequency of a wave to its wavelength and wave velocity. Does this imply that sound waves of different frequencies travel at different velocities?

Answer 1

1)in air columns sound travels through air

2) standing waves- it is a type of wave that does not propagate but oscillates between two fixed points

3) resonance is when one object vibrates to natural frequency of another object.

examples are Acoustic resonances of musical instruments and the human vocal tract

4) every air column has a specific length and hence a specific resonant frequency .in this case 60Hz will not be in syn with the natural or overtone frequency of the air column

5) velcoty = frequency* wavelength

now , it implies that for different frequencies , wavelength varies such that speed remains constant