Oobleck

Oobleck Video

Sound waves are called compression or longitudinal waves. It's like a slinky - if you squish one end and let it go you will see the waves travel from one end to the next.

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Sound waves cannot travel through a vacuum, but must have a medium, or something to flow through. Transverse waves are often drawn as a simplified way of viewing frequency and amplitude. (The resultant physical waves in a medium could be transverse waves as well.)

Amplitude is essentially the volume of a sound wave. This is measured from the top most point to the bottom most point. Frequency is the pitch. Pitch is measured by the distance between each of the waves.



Notice that the high notes have many waves occurring in a space, whereas the low notes have fewer. The high notes have a higher frequency than the low notes.

Also notice that louder sound = taller waves. The louder notes have a greater amplitude.

Instrument sound waves are different as well due to the different timbres (tone colors) of each instrument. Much of this is due to the method of vibration. Different instruments create sound vibrations in different ways.

This is an artistic rendering of sound waves. The top part is a depiction of the resultant sound waves when someone said the first part of this famous quote, "To be or not to be." Can you imagine where the words begin. Listen to the amplitude (volume) of your voice as you speak. Which words sound the loudest? Do they look the loudest in the sound waves?