A sound wave is similar in nature to a slinky wave for a variety of reasons. First, there is a medium which carries the disturbance from one location to another. Typically, this medium is air; though it could be any material such as water or steel. The medium is simply a series of interconnected and interacting particles. Second, there is an original source of the wave, some vibrating object capable of disturbing the first particle of the medium. The vibrating object which creates the disturbance could be the vocal chords of a person, the vibrating string and sound board of a guitar or violin, the vibrating tines of a tuning fork, or the vibrating diaphragm of a radio speaker. Third, the sound wave is transported from one location to another by means of the particle interaction. If the sound wave is moving through air, then as one air particle is displaced from its equilibrium position, it exerts a push or pull on its nearest neighbors, causing them to be displaced from their equilibrium position. This particle interaction continues throughout the entire medium, with each particle interacting and causing a disturbance of its nearest neighbors. Since a sound wave is a disturbance which is transported through a medium via the mechanism of particle interaction, a sound wave is characterized as a mechanical wave.
The
creation and propagation of sound waves are often demonstrated in class
through the use of a tuning fork. A tuning fork is a metal object
consisting of two tines capable of vibrating if struck by a rubber hammer
or mallet. As the tines of the tuning forks vibrate back and forth, they
begin to disturb surrounding air molecules. These disturbances are passed
on to adjacent air molecules by the mechanism of particle interaction. The
motion of the disturbance, originating at the tines of the tuning fork and
traveling through the medium (in this case, air) is what is referred to as
a sound wave. The generation and propagation of a sound wave is
demonstrated in the animation below.
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