Sound waves

The pattern of disturbance caused by the movement of energy generated from a source of sound while travelling through a medium, such as air, water or any other solid or liquid form of matter as it propagates from the generated source of sound is called sound wave. The source of sound may be an object which generates the vibration such as a ringing telephone or the voice from human vocal chords. The vibration cause disturbance to the surrounding medium, those particles cause disturbance to the particles next to it and so on. The pattern of the disturbance creates a wave pattern in an outward movement like the waves of seawater on the ocean. The sound wave carried out through all forms of medium in all direction but the intensity of the sound wave becomes diminished as it moves far away from the source from where the sound wave is generated.

Uses of sound waves

The various uses of sound waves are as follows:

1. Ultrasound waves are used to detect objects:  

a) Echolocation: Sending out ultrasound waves and interpreting the returning sound echoes is called echolocation. Bats flies at night and use flying insects as their meals by using the principle of echolocation.

b) Sonar: The device which use the principle of echolocation is known as sonar. The sonar devices send out the ultrasound waves and then uses the echoes to locate the underwater object.

c) Medical use of Ultrasound: The ultrasound waves uses very high intensities as a result it not audible by the humans. There are various application of ultrasound in the field of medical uses like ultrasound wave is used as scanner, used check the health of a fetus during pregnancy, the ultrasound waves are used to safely break down the kidney stones in patients and many more. Ultrasound is safer than other imaging methods, such as the x-ray, which might harm the development of the fetus.

2. Sound waves can produce music:

Musical instruments produce pitches and rhythms when made to vibrate at their natural frequencies. Some musical instruments have parts that vibrate at different frequencies to make different pitches. The string instruments like guitar are played by plucking the strings. The plucking start the vibration which produces the melodious sound waves.

Types of Sound waves

There are two types of sound waves are:

1) Longitudinal wave

2) Transverse wave

1) Longitudinal wave: In longitudinal wave the movement of the particle is parallel to the direction of the propagated wave. It means the particle moves in to and fro motion, which in turns makes other particles start to oscillate. The sound waves are most common kind of longitudinal wave.

2) Transverse wave: The traverse wave are characterized by the particle motion which is being perpendicular to the wave motion. For an example, plucking the guitar string gave the string a mechanical energy, which generates a mechanical wave. The generated mechanical is a wave that travels the matter and thus by generating a musical sound.