Waves Sound and Light
Waves Sound and Light
Waves Sound and Light
Waves, Sound,
and Light
Mark A. Johnson/CORBIS
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Waves
What are waves?
When you float in the pool on a warm summer day, the up-
and-down movement of the water tells you waves are moving
■ Explain how waves transport
past. Sometimes the waves are so strong they almost push you
energy. over. Other times, the waves just gently rock you. You know
■ Distinguish among transverse, about water waves because you can see and feel their movement,
compressional, and electromag- but there are other types of waves, also. Different types of waves
netic waves. carry signals to televisions and radios. Sound and light waves
■ Describe the properties of
waves. move all around you and enable you to hear and see. Waves are
■ Describe reflection, refraction, even responsible for the damage caused by earthquakes.
and diffraction of waves.
Waves Carry Energy, not Matter A wave is a disturbance
that moves through matter or space. Waves carry energy from
Devices such as televisions, radios, one place to another. You can see that the waves in Figure 1 carry
and cell phones receive and trans-
mit information by waves.
energy by the way they crash against the rocks. In water waves,
the energy is transferred by water molecules. When a wave
Review Vocabulary moves, it may seem that the wave carries matter from place to
density: the mass per cubic meter place as the wave moves.
of a substance But that’s not what really happens. When waves travel
through solids, liquids, and gases, matter is not carried along
New Vocabulary
with the waves. The movement of the fishing bob in Figure 1
•• wave
transverse wave transfers energy to nearby water molecules. The energy is then
•• compressional
wavelength
wave passed from molecule to molecule as the wave spreads out. The
wave disturbance moves outward, but the locations of the water
•• frequency
law of reflection molecules hardly change at all.
•• refraction
diffraction The energy carried by ocean waves
can break rocks.
The movement of the fishing bob pro-
duces water waves that carry energy
through the water.
Rarefaction
Figure 3 A wave on a spring coil is
an example of a compressional wave. Compression
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Properties of Waves
The properties that waves have depend on the vibrations
that produce the waves. For example, if you move a pencil slowly
up and down in a bowl of water, the waves produced by the pen-
cil’s motion will be small and spread apart. If you move the pen-
cil rapidly, the waves will be larger and close together.
Wavelength Wavelength
Wavelength
Wavelength
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Solution
This is what you know: ● wavelength: 10 m
● frequency: f 34 Hz
This is the procedure Substitute the known values for wavelength and
you need to use: frequency into the wave speed equation and
calculate the wave speed:
v f (10.0 m)(34 Hz)
340 m Hz 340 m (1/s) 340 m/s
1. Waves on a string have a wavelength of 0.55 m. If the frequency of the waves is 6.0 Hz,
what is the wave speed?
2. If the frequency of a sound wave in water is 15,000 Hz, and the sound wave travels through
water at a speed of 1,500 m/s, what is the wavelength?
For more practice, visit
blue.msscience.com/
math_practice
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Figure 9 The amount of diffrac- Diffraction of Sound and Light The wavelengths of sound
tion or bending around an obstacle waves are similar to the size of objects around you, but the wave-
depends on the size of the obstacle length of light waves are much shorter. As a result, you can hear
and the wavelength of the wave. people talking in a room with an open door even though you
can’t see them.
Sound Waves
Making Sound Waves
How does the motion of a drummer’s drumsticks produce
sound waves? The impact of the sticks on the head of a drum
causes the drum head to vibrate. These vibrations transfer ■ Describe how sound waves are
energy to nearby air particles, producing sound waves in air. You produced.
can hear the sound because energy from the drums travels as ■ Explain how sound waves travel
sound waves to your ears. Every sound you hear is caused by through matter.
■ Describe the relationship
something vibrating. For example, when you talk, tissues in your
between loudness and sound
throat vibrate in different ways to form sounds. intensity.
■ Explain how humans hear
Sound Waves are Compressional Waves Sound waves sound.
produced by a vibrating object are compressional waves. Figure 10
shows how the vibrating drum produces compressional waves.
When the drummer hits the drum, the head of the drum vibrates. A knowledge of sound helps you
understand how to protect your
Nearby air particles vibrate with the same frequency as the fre- hearing.
quency of vibrations. The drum head moving outward compresses
nearby air particles. The drum head moving inward causes Review Vocabulary
rarefactions in nearby air particles. The inward and outward perception: a recognition, sense,
movement of the drum head produces the same pattern of com- or understanding of something
pressions and rarefactions in the air particles.
New Vocabulary
Sound waves can only travel through matter. The energy car-
ried by a sound wave is transferred by the collisions between the •• intensity
pitch
particles in the material the wave is traveling in. A spaceship
traveling outside Earth’s atmosphere, for example, does not
• reverberation
make any sound outside the ship.
Compression
Compression Rarefaction
Rubber 1,600
The Loudness of Sound
Diamond 12,000 What makes a sound loud or soft? The girl in Figure 11 can
make a loud sound by clapping the cymbals together sharply.
Iron 5,130
She can make a soft sound by clapping the cymbals together
gently. The difference is the amount of energy the girl gives to
the cymbals. Loud sounds have more energy than soft sounds.
Figure 11 The loudness of a Intensity The amount of energy that a wave carries past a cer-
sound depends on the amount of tain area each second is the intensity of the sound. Figure 12
energy the sound waves carry. shows how the intensity of sound from the cymbals decreases
with distance. A person standing close when the girl claps the
cymbals would hear an intense sound. The sound would be less
intense for someone standing farther away. The intensity of
sound waves is related to the amplitude. Sound with a greater
amplitude also has a greater intensity.
Loudness in Decibels
Power
mower
Purring Average Vacuum Pain
Whisper cat home cleaner threshold
dB 0 150
15 20 25 50 75 80 100 110 120 Jet plane
115 taking off
The Decibel Scale and Loudness The intensity of sound Figure 13 The intensity of
waves is measured in units of decibels (dB), as shown in Figure 13. sound is measured on the decibel
The softest sound a person can hear has an intensity of 0 dB. Normal scale.
conversation has an intensity of about 50 dB. Sound with intensities Infer how many times louder a
of about 120 dB or higher are painful to people. power mower is compared to a
Loudness is the human perception of the intensity of sound noisy restaurant.
waves. Each increase of 10 dB in intensity multiplies the energy
of the sound waves ten times. Most people perceive this as a
doubling of the loudness of the sound. An intensity increase of
20 dB corresponds to a hundred times the energy and an
increase in loudness of about four times.
The Inner Ear The inner ear contains the cochlea. The
Figure 14 The human ear can cochlea is filled with fluid and is lined with tiny hair-like cells.
be divided into three parts. The Vibrations of the stirrup bone are transmitted to the hair cells.
outer ear is the sound collector, the The movement of the hair cells produce signals that travel to
middle ear is the sound amplifier, your brain, where they are interpreted as sound.
and the inner ear is the sound
interpreter.
Outer Ear
Gathers sound waves
Cochlea
Ear canal
Eardrum Stirrup
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Light
Waves in Empty Space
On a clear night you might see the Moon shining brightly,
as in Figure 16. Like other waves, light waves can travel
through matter, but light waves are different from water ■ Identify the properties of light
waves and sound waves. Light from the Moon has traveled waves.
through space that contains almost no matter. You can see ■ Describe the electromagnetic
light from the moon, distant stars, and galaxies because light is spectrum.
■ Describe the types of electro-
an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves are waves that
magnetic waves that travel from
can travel through matter or through empty space. the Sun to Earth.
■ Explain human vision and color
The Speed of Light Have you ever seen a movie where a perception.
spaceship travels faster than the speed of light? In reality, noth-
ing travels faster than the speed of light. In empty space, light
travels at a speed of about 300,000 km/s. Light travels so fast that Light is necessary for vision. Other
electromagnetic waves are used in
light emitted from the Sun travels 150 million km to Earth in devices such as cell phones and
only about eight and a half minutes. microwave ovens.
However, when light travels in matter, it interacts with the
atoms and molecules in the material and slows down. As a Review Vocabulary
result, light travels fastest in empty space, and travels slowest in spectrum: a range of values or
solids. In glass, for example, light travels about 197,000 km/s. properties
New Vocabulary
Wavelength and Frequency of Light Can you guess how
long a wavelength of light is? Wavelengths of light are usually
•• electromagnetic waves
electromagnetic spectrum
expressed in units of nanometers (nm). One nanometer is equal •• infrared waves
ultraviolet waves
to one billionth of a meter. For example, green light has a wave-
length of about 500 nm, or 500 billionths of a meter. A light
wave with this wavelength has a frequency of 600 trillion Hz.
INCREASING WAVELENGTH
Radio waves Infrared waves Ultraviolet waves Gamma rays
Microwaves X rays
Visible light
INCREASING FREQUENCY
Radio Waves and Microwaves The waves that carry radio Figure 18 Electromagnetic
and television signals to your home are radio waves. The wave- waves have a range of frequencies
lengths of radio waves are greater than about 0.3 meters. Some and wavelengths called the elec-
are even thousands of meters long. The shortest radio waves are tromagnetic spectrum.
called microwaves. These waves have a wavelength between Infer how the frequency of electro-
about 0.3 meters and 0.001 meters. You use these waves when magnetic waves change as their
you cook food in a microwave oven. Microwaves are also used to wavelength decreases.
transmit information to and from cell phones.
Cornea
Optic nerve
Lens Lens
The lens becomes flatter when you focus on a distant The lens becomes more curved when you focus on an
object. object nearby.
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Waves
reflection diffraction
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3. The _________ is the complete range of 13. Which of the following are not transverse
electromagnetic wave frequencies and waves?
wavelengths. A) radio waves C) sound waves
B) infrared waves D) visible light
4. The amount of energy that a wave carries
past a certain area each second is the 14. Which of the following wave properties
_________. determines the energy carried by a wave?
A) amplitude C) wavelength
5. In a(n) _________, the particles in the
B) frequency D) wave speed
material move at right angles to the direc-
tion the wave moves. 15. Which of the following best describes why
refraction of a wave occurs when the wave
6. The _________ of a wave is the number of
travels from one material into another?
wavelengths that pass a point each second.
A) The wavelength increases.
7. In a _________, particles in the material B) The speed of the wave changes.
move back and forth along the direction of C) The amplitude increases.
wave motion. D) The frequency decreases.
16. What produces waves?
A) sound C) transfer of energy
Choose the word or phrase that best answers the B) heat D) vibrations
question. 17. Which of the following has wavelengths
8. If the distance between the crest and trough of longer than the wavelengths of visible
a wave is 0.6 m, what is the wave’s amplitude? light?
A) 0.3 m C) 0.6 m A) X rays C) radio waves
B) 1.2 m D) 2.4 B) gamma rays D) ultraviolet waves
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