For you, what is sound?

Sound is the sensation produced in the organ of hearing by means of the vibratory movements of bodies, transmitted by an elastic medium such as air.

The characteristics of the sound are: the timbre, the intensity and the duration, which causes that a sound can be differentiated from one sound to another. The timbre is the quality that allows us to distinguish different sounds since the sound of a flute is not the same as the sound of a piano, as well as the voice of a man with the voice of a child, etc.; intensity is the amount of acoustic energy that a sound contains and allows us to differentiate if the sound is strong or weak; the duration is the time during which a sound is maintained, therefore, there are long, short, very short sounds, among others.

On the other hand, the instrument used to measure and compare sounds is known as a sound level meter and the results are expressed in decibels. It is extremely important that the sounds we perceive exceed the hearing threshold and not the pain threshold, that is, 140 decibels. In the same way, there are different sounds: high, low or medium.

Sound waves propagate in all directions in a straight line but when they hit an obstacle they are reflected, altering their direction. The reflection of sound produces: resonance and echo or rebound, the first is characterized by the fact that an object begins to vibrate due to the influence of others less than 17 meters away, in turn, the second is the repetition of a sound against any hard surface, that is, the echo is heard after the original sound.

Let’s see the following experiment and why not? Let’s make, let’s know more about how to make different sounds and how we can achieve it with common objects.