Question

someone from across a room tells you to make your voice louder. how does raising your voice affect the maximum displacement of the air molecules from equilibrium? If the other person moves even further away and keep your voice at the same level of loudness, how does this affect the maximum displacement of the air molecules from the equilibrium?

Answer 1

When we speak the air molecules around us gets vibrated and they start moving to and fro due to pressure difference created by our vocal cords. When we speak louder, the pressure difference created in the air around us increases which thus increase the vibration of the molecules. Since the to and fro motion i.e. the vibration of the molecules increases thus the total displacement or maximum displacement of the molecule increases from the equilibrium position.

When the person moves further away, the molecules near the speaker keeps vibrating at the same displacement but as we move further away due to damping effect ,the displacement of the molecules from mean position keeps on decreasing.