How fast
is sound?







Above, you see a tuning fork bumping against air particles...
each successive bump sends out a compressional wave that propagates throughout
the room. (Here I only showed them going sideways) Regions
where the particles are bunched together, it is called a compression and
where there is nothing in between, it's a rarefaction.
One wavelength is the distance from compression center to compression center.
We calculate the wavelength by observing the effect of placing a tuning fork over a piece of PVC tubing with water in it. As you release water, the column of air becomes longer. The surface of the water is a node. When a compression reaches the mouth of the tube, the tube/air column resonate. This distance equals one quarter of a wave....
Since v = l*f, we can use v = (4)(obseved distance)(fork frequency).
Students always get pretty good results. Here are
a few working: