what is the form of sound wawes? are they mechanical or electromagnetic?
470235
The previous poster is right.  It's particles in the air "vibrating" (caused by pressure differences) that enables you to hear.  That is why in space, which is a vaccuum, you cannot hear anything.  There is nothing to transmit those pressure differences to your ear.
4461
Transverse electromagnetic waves (light,microwaves etc), the cosinewave shape is the same as calling something sinusoidal.\n\nSoundwave amplitudes can be sinusoidal.\n\nThe swing of a pendulum, simple harmonic motion.\n\nsinusoidal functions are solutions to many differential equations we find in nature.\n\nwaves on strings!
464632
(1) The Sound is a  physical phenomenon that stimulates the sense of hearing. \n(2) In human beings, hearing takes place whenever vibrations of frequencies between about 15 and 20,000 hertz reach the inner ear.\n(3)  The hertz (Hz) is a unit of frequency equalling one cycle per second. Such vibrations reach the inner ear when they are transmitted through air, and the term sound is sometimes restricted to such airborne vibrational waves. Modern physicists, however, usually extend the term to include similar vibrations in liquid or solid media. Sounds of frequencies higher than about 20,000 hertz are called ultrasonic
629732
Sound is a compressional wave and it requires atoms to make energy travel through. think of a pool stick being your mouth. being on earth is the same as having pool balls in front of it therefor the nergy is transferred. however in space, think of your pool stick without any pool balls in front of your stick. nothing happens. becuase there is nothing to transfer the energy. the medium is the matter that carries the sound waves.\n\nLight is a very special wave. it has tiny particles called photons that are infinity small(meaning we can't measure them but we know they are there becuase they ionize special elements.) so light is really a combination of energy and matter. and since light has a medium(tiny particles) within itself it doesn't need any other matter to travel. it can change mediums however, light travels faster in less dense areas than more dense areas which explains that is has tiny particles. sound is just a compressional wave which means when the matter is more dense it travels faster becuase the time required to travel is less becuase the molecules are closer. since light has its own molecules it can't travel through dense matter becuase the dense molecules block the light's particles from traveling.
658441
Sound is the effect your brain evokes when your tympan vibrates. These vibrations are usually caused by air that was set on the move by a distant body (like a bell, for instance). Water and other liquids can perform the same effect as air, although the "sound" you will perceive is quite different due to the distinct elastic properties of the liquid.\nIn outer space, there is almost no matter at all (that´s why its called a "vacuum"). So, there is no way of propagating a "wave" since waves need matter to be propagated (air, water, solids, etc). \nThat´s why sound doesn´t exist in outer space.
910771
"Both light and sound are waves." "and is there a physical analogous comparison of light waves to sound waves?"\n\nYes they are both waves. However, light is known as an electromagnetic wave which is a propagating disturbance of both the electric and magnetic field in space. Sound however is a pressure wave transmitted through a medium. Light waves are transverse meaning the direction of travel is perpendicular to the direction of oscillation. While sound waves are longitudinal meaning the direction of travel is parallel to the direction of oscillation. Another difference is that light waves DO NOT need a medium of travel (they can go through a vacuum) however sound waves exist only in a medium.\n\n"Sound is measured in Hz. how are light waves measured?"\nYou are correct, one measurement of sound is in Hz. However, waves have 4 unique properties. Velocity the rate that it propagates which is measured in m/s. Frequency, how many times the wave repeats itself in a period of time measured in Hz. Wavelength, the distance between complete cycles measured in meters. And finally, Amplitude or Intensity which is measured in decibels or W/m^2 which measures how high the crests become and how low the troughs become. The larger the amplitude the higher the peaks and lower the valleys. This is also measured in meters. Higher intensitys is proportional to the amount of energy the wave has. \n\nAs far as measuring a light wave, we usually measure the intensity and either the wavelength or frequency of the light wave.  The wavelength of light and sound is inversely proportional to the frequency because the velocity is fixed to the speed of sound 343 m/s or the speed of light 3.00 x 10^8 m/s.  \nThe higher the frequency of light, the more the light moves to the purple end of the spectrum (think about the rainbow). The human eye typically picks up light between 390 (purple) nm - 970 (red) nm\n\nvelocity = wavelength * frequency.
577560
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_waves
37506
either sound, waves or air.
539308
The vibration of a particle at one place is transmitted to the adjacent particle.\n \nThe transmission of vibration energy from one point to another is sound transmission. \n\nThe transmission is not instantaneous. There is a time delay.\n\nThe delayed transmission of energy from one point to another makes the sound to travel with a particular speed. \n\nWhat makes this delay? That is your question. \n\nEvery body is elastic to one or another degree.\n\nLet a body be distorted by a force for a short duration. The body restores itself to its original form. Every body has this elastic property.\n\n This property is the reason that any   mechanical action is transmitted with a finite velocity.\n\nImagine a perfectly rigid rod. This rod by definition cannot be deformed.\n\nAn action of a force on such a rod would be able to move the rod as a unit and the energy will dissipate instantaneously.\n\nTherefore a perfectly rigid body cannot transmit sound. (Velocity of sound is zero)\n\nNext consider a perfectly plastic body.  This body by definition will not return to its original form after distortion.\n\nTherefore a perfectly plastic body also cannot transmit sound. (Velocity of sound is zero)\n\nThus the speed of sound depends upon the elastic property of the materials used.\n\nThe air is highly compressible and takes some time to return to its original form when compared to liquid which are not so compressible and take lesser time to return to original form.\n\nTherefore sound travels with less speed in air than in liquid.\n\nThe density of the substance also plays an important role; If the mass is greater the restoring force gives less acceleration to the particle.
745636
The main concept to understand is that of a carrier wave.  The radio wave is that.  A radio wave is electro-magnetic radiation, which, unlike other waves, is not a vibration within a medium, like sound waves for example, which are the propagation of alternating high and low pressure within the air, or other fluid media.  Electro-magnetic waves are a self propagating electro-magnetic effect which can travel even in a vacuum.  Electro-magnetic radiation is a pulsing stream of energy where the pulses are at a constant frequency.  What we perceive as different phenomenon are in fact the same electromagnetic radiation but at different frequencies.  Microwaves, Radio, Ultra-violet, Visible Light, and Infra-red, are all electro-magnetic radiation moving down the scale from high to low frequency.\n\nThe radio transmitter sends out radio waves at a specific frequency or band of frequencies.  The aerial of the receiver develops tiny electric currents in it as the radio wave flows past it.  These are pulsing currents at the same frequency as the radio wave, but these pulses are not in themselves the content of speech or music.  This content, or signal, is carried in the wave, hence the concept of the carrier wave.\n\nIt is easier to understand Amplitude Modulation or AM radio so I will restrict myself to that.  If you imagine a radio wave as a very long string with the pulses like beads on it, all spaced at precise intervals, then imagine that the beads slowly getter bigger and smaller along its length.  Each bead is a packet of energy in the wave and all occur at the same frequency, but where the beads get bigger there is more energy in the packet.  It only takes a little more imagination now to see how the pattern of a sound wave can be represented by the bulging out of the beads, and their getting smaller.  This is called the amplitude.\n\nLooking at it in practical terms, at the transmitter end sound is converted in the microphone into a corresponding pattern of changes in the current flowing through the microphone.  That is your signal.  That signal which is at a low electrical power, is used to create the same pattern but in a circuit of much higher electrical power - that is what an amplifier does.  The device used to transfer the pattern is called a transistor, which uses the low powered circuit to control the flow in the high powered circuit.\n\nThe amplified signal is fed to the transmitter aerial, so now that pattern of electrical energy, identical to the pattern of the sound picked up by the microphone, comes out of the aerial as radio waves, with the pattern held in the varying amplitude of the radio wave.\n\nNow comes a trick to follow.  If there are thousands of transmitters all radiating radio waves all over the place, how come your radio only picks up the one signal.  This is where the tuner comes in.  The principle of radio tuning depends on the opposite properties of coils and capacitors.  I don't know if you know what these are, but it doesn't matter if you don't.  Both of these devices have a special kind of resistance to electricity known as impedance.  Impedance only operates where the current is varying.  The voltages and currents in our radio Ariel will be varying at exactly the same frequency as each radio wave it is exposed to, so if we pass that current through either a coil or a capacitor there will be an impedance in the circuit.  Now the impedance of the coil increases as the frequency gets higher and the impedance of the capacitor gets higher as the frequency gets lower.  An AM tuning circuit simply passes the signal current through both a coil and a capacitor at the same time, and the capacitor is a mechanically variable one, so by turning a knob you can increase or decrease the capacitance.  The trick here is that as the capacitance changes the circuit will show least impedance to a specific frequency compared with all the others, so provided the frequencies are not too close, as the law requ
328045
Yes, a radio wave is an elecromagnetic wave just as light, X-rays, microwave, gamma rays, etc.  All carried by photons.  Radio waves are the least energetic, or longest wavelength, of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Sound waves, on the other hand, are like waves in water, or sand dunes-they are movements of atoms-air, in the case of sound-they are not carried by photons, do not go the speed of light, and are not electromagnetic.  All electromagneic waves go the speed of light, since they are carried by photons.  The only difference between a radio wave and a visible light wave in the frequency of the wave and the energy of the photon (both of which are integrated).
45999
WAV (or WAVE), short for WAVE form audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing audio on PCs. It is a variant of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus also close to the IFF and the AIFF format used on Macintosh computers. It takes into account some differences of the Intel CPU such as little-endian byte order. The RIFF format acts as a "wrapper" for various audio compression codecs. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw audio.\n\nAdvanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a lossy data compression scheme intended for audio streams.\n\nMPEG Audio Layer-3, or more commonly refered to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format invented and standardized in 1991 by a team of engineers working in the framework of the ISO/IEC MPEG audio committee under the chairmanship of Professor Hans Musmann (University of Hannover - Germany). It was designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. In popular usage, MP3 also refers to files of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 format on computers.\nContents
1074022
Delay repeats the sound, thus, is an echo. Delay, when sped up is reverb (basically, it's not that simple, but if u have a delay pedal, try the "frequency" knob) A mechanical delay is simply some springs and a microphone (again over simplified but it explains this) but anyhow, as the music vibrates the springs, the springs act and "delay" the sound for later when after a few seconds the microphone picks them up and repeats a similar sound.
541682
here are some good ones:\n\nhttp://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GBSSCI/PHYS/CLASS/sound/soundtoc.html\n\nhttp://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/sound/soundtoc.html\n\nhttp://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/p128/lecture99_35.html
433194
all sound is produced by making sound waves, your actions on the instruments make sound waves by making the air vibrate. For stringed instruments you make the string vibrate by plucking or rubbing it with a bow, the vibration of the string makes sound waves in the air. what the music will be like depends on the length  of the string,so a double bass with long strings produces a lower note than a violin with short strings. Wind instruments have a sound box ( the body of the instrument) which amplifies the sound so that it is loud enough to hear easily. \nFor a wind instrument you blow through a mouth piece or reed to create the vibrations, the note is determined by the length of the pipe , so a recorder (short pipe)produces higher notes than a bassoon (long pipe), the pipe also acts as the soundbox.\n\nIn percussion instruments the vibrations are made by banging a surface to make the soundwaves. Drums usually use a skin, with the body of the drum forming the soundbox, xylophones and triangles use a metal plate or bar, and do not require a soundbox. the note is determined by the size of the skin or bar.
953747
sounds are waves, which travel through a medium.  In this case, the medium is air.  \n\nVariations in density distort the waves (which is why things sound different underwater).  Wind causes these density fluccuations in air.  Therefore, it can affect the sound you hear.
384142
There's a wav file here from m-w.\n\nhttp://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ampere01.wav=ampere\n\nPronunciation: 'am-"pir