Sound and the Ear

Question 1

What is Wavelength?

Answer 1

Wavelength is the distance between one peak to the next closest peak

Question 2

Frequency is what?

Answer 2

Frequency is the number of sound waves in a second and is measured in hertz (Hz) 1Hz is 1 sound wave per second

Question 3

What is amplitude, how can you see it in a sound wave and how does it relate to energy?

Answer 3

Amplitude is the height of a wave, the taller it is the louder the sound is, the smaller it is the quieter the sound is

Question 4

Low frequency is

Answer 4

Low pitch

Question 5

High frequency is

Answer 5

High pitch

Question 6

Does sound travel faster in gas, liquid or solids

Answer 6

Solids as the particles are closer together so the atoms hit each other and move faster

Question 7

What are waves?

Answer 7

They are transfers of energy, not matter

Question 8

Why doesn’t sound travel in space?

Answer 8

Because there is no matter for it to travel through.

Question 9

What is another word for sound vibrations?

Answer 9

Oscilations

Question 10

Give an example of a high pitch / frequency sound

Answer 10

Someone screaming, bird tweeting

Question 11

Give an example of a low pitched/ frequency sound

Answer 11

Tuba playing a low note, airplane flying overhead, lawnmower

Question 12

What is the pinna

Answer 12

It’s the funnel for the sound into the eardrum (it’s the external part of your ear)

Question 13

What are the cossicles and what is their function?

Answer 13

Three tiny bones in the ear that transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the cochlea

Question 14

What does the cochlea look like ?

Answer 14

A tiny snail in the internal part of the ear. The cochlea is a fluid-filled, spiral-shaped cavity found in the inner ear.

Question 15

What is the cochlea’s function?

Answer 15

Sound waves are changed into electrical impulses that the brain eventually interprets as individual sound frequencies

Question 16

What does the auditory nerve do?

Answer 16

It carries auditory sensory information from the cochlea directly to the brain

Question 17

How does the eardrum work?

Answer 17

Sound waves make the eardrum vibrate, which is a tough layer of tissue

Question 18

What is rarefraction?

Answer 18

When longitudinal waves are far apart rather than bunched up.

Question 19

What is compression?

Answer 19

When longitudinal waves are bunched rather than far apart

Question 20

What are examples of transverse waves?

Answer 20

ripples on the surface of the water, vibrations on a guitar string, a Mexican waves, electromagnetic waves (light waves, microwaves and radio waves), seismic S-waves

Question 21

What are examples of longitudinal waves?

Answer 21

Sound waves, ultra-sound waves and seismic P-waves

Question 22

What are transverse waves?

Answer 22

Transverse waves are waves at a right angle to the direction of the wave.

Question 23

What are Longitudinal waves?

Answer 23

Longitudinal waves are waves which are along the same direction as the direction of travel.

Question 24

What are echos?

Answer 24

Echos are when the sound reflects off a surface or several surfaces. There is always a delay between making the sound and hearing the echo.

Question 25

How do we hear sound?

Answer 25

The particles start to vibrate. The vibrations are passed onto the ear drum ossicles and the cochlear signals are passed from cochlea to the brain by the auditory nerve and the brain interprets these signals as sounds.

Question 26

What is the human hearing range

Answer 26

20-20,000 hertz