Physics (Velocity of Sound)

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Experiment 7: Velocity of Sound Laboratory Report Matthew Sazon, Baljit Singh, Rhyla Sy, Monica Tan, Jeneva Vargas Department of Math and Physics College of Science, University of Santo Tomas España, Manila Philippines Abstract The objective of the experiments conducted is to determine the velocity of sound. Using water and a resonance tube apparatus, the speed of sound was determined to be 316.64 m/s using a 512 Hz tuning fork and 327.18 m/s using a 320 Hz tuning fork. The second experiment is done by making a sound on the open end of a glass tube, which was picked up by a microphone; the speed of sound was found to be 356.36 m/s with a 2.99% error compared to the theoretical speed. The last experiment was done by using a thin layer of cork dust inside the Kundt’s tube; using the wave pattern formed, the theoretical speed was calculated to be 4879.582089 m/s with a 3.99% error from the theoretical speed. 1. Introduction On a daily basis, sound can be heard any time, in people’s homes, on the street, at school and the like. The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. A sound wave is a pressure disturbance that travels through a medium by means of particle-to-particle interaction. All of these are discussed in this experiment. Experimenters find out how sound travels, how long it travels, its wavelength, frequency, speed and other properties. 2. Theory A wave is defined as the motion of a disturbance which travels through a medium from one location to another location. Waves may be described in terms of their properties which are amplitude, wavelength, period, and frequency. The amplitude of a wave is its maximum disturbance from its undisturbed position. Wavelength is the distance between identical points between two successive waves and is usually denoted by λ.

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