CHAPTER: 13

SOUND
BY: KANISHKA SHARMA
CLASS: VIII-B
ROLL NO: 16
INTRODUCTION:
You hear different sounds every day. Some sounds
are loud, some are soft, some are dull, and so on.
Some sounds, such as those produced by guitar are
pleasant, while some sounds which are produced by
suppose a drilling machine is unpleasant. Each sound
has its own characteristics. It is because of these we
can recognize different sounds.
Sounds help us to communicate. It is difficult to
communicate without sound. Several animals
communicate with each other through sounds.
SOUND IS A FORM OF ENERGY.
HOW SOUND IS PRODUCED
Have you ever placed your palm on the
speaker of a music system when it was playing
or touched your throat while speaking? What
do you feel? You feel a vibration. A vibration
can be defined as a rapid back and forth
movement of a body about a central position. A
sound is produced because of a vibration. Thus,
sound is a vibration that is capable of being
heard.
The organ in the human body that is involved
in the production of sound is the larynx. The
voice box is situated in the neck at the upper
end of the wind pipe. The sound produced is
controlled by vocal cords, which are thin
membrane stretched across the voice box.
SOUND WAVES:
You have seen that when the surface of water is touched with
a turning fork, small waves are produced in the water. A wave
in the water can be represented as shown.
Sound travels through air, liquids an solids in the form of
waves, they are represented in the same way as shown.

CRES
T

TROUG
H
OBSERVING VIBRATION: (or oscillations)
In an object producing sound,
the vibration are so rapid that
they cannot be observed
properly. You can produce slower
vibration by hanging a weight
from a thread. This arrangement
is called a pendulum. The weight
is called the bob of the
pendulum. When undisturbed
the pendulum stays in a fixed
position. If you give the bob a
AMPLITUDE:
The oscillation of a pendulum
are small if you give the bob a
small push. If you give the
bob a stronger push, the
oscillations are larger. The
maximum distance by which LARGE AMPLITUDE
the bob moves away from its
mean position is called
amplitude of the oscillation.
The amplitude of a vibration
is the maximum distance by
TIME PERIOD:
When the bob moves from one
position and comes back to the
same position, it is said to
complete one oscillation. For eg.
If the bob starts from A, goes to B A C

C then to B, and then to A, we

say one oscillation is complete.
The time taken to complete one
oscillation is called the time
period of the oscillation. It is
measured in seconds.
FREQUENCY:
The number of oscillation per second is called the frequency
of oscillation. For example, if the bob of the pendulum
moves 5 times through point B in a second, its frequency is
5 per second. The SI unit of frequency per second is called
hertz (Hz) in honour of the German physicist, Heinrich R.
Hertz.
When we say that a vibrating body has a time period ‘t’, we
mean that it completes one oscillation in ‘t’ seconds. Thus,
in 1 second it will complete oscillation, which is its
frequency.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUND
LOUDNESS:
If you strike a drum softly, it produces a soft sound. If you
strike it hard, its skin vibrates with greater amplitude and a
louder sound is produced. This shows that loudness of the
sound produced by a vibrating object depends on the
amplitude of vibration.
Loudness is proportional to the square of the amplitude. This
means that if the amplitude is doubled, the loudness
increases four times.
PITCH:
Pitch is a measure of how high or low a sound is. A shrill
sound has a higher pitch, than a dull sound. For eg. A
woman’s voice normally has a higher pitch that a man’s
voice.
Thus, the pitch of the sound depends on the frequency of
vibration of its source. The higher the frequency, the more
high-pitched the sound. The frequency of a woman’s voice is
higher than a man’s voice. The thinner wires of a guitar or
sitar give out sound of higher pitch than the thicker wires,
because thin wires vibrate with greater frequency than thick
wires.
QUALITY:
If the vibrating strings of guitar and sitar are adjusted to
give the same pitch and loudness, we can still distinguish
their sound from one another. This is due to another
characteristic of sound known as its quality.
HOW OUR EARS CATCH SOUND:
The can be broadly classified into three parts: the outer ear, the middle
ear, and the inner ear.
OUTER EAR: the part of the outer ear that is visible to us is called pinna.
The pinna collects sound waves and direct them to the ear tube. At the
end of the ear tube is the ear drum (also called tympanum). The ear
drum vibrates when sound waves strike it and transmits the sound to
the middle ear.
MIDDLE EAR: the middle ear is a cavity with three important ear bones.
These three bones are placed in such a way that they move when the
ear drum vibrates and, therefore transmit vibration to the inner ear.
INNER EAR: the inner ear is connected to the middle ear through a
small opening. The inner ear is filled with a fluid. When this fluid
vibrates, it excites tiny hair in the inner ear. These hair transform the
vibration into electrical impulses, which are then transferred to the
brain via the auditory nerve and thus, we hear a sound.
 STRUCTU
RE OF A
Auditory
nerve

HUMAN
EAR
AUDIBLE AND INAUDIBLE
SOUNDS:
Although it is true that all bodies that vibrate in air produce
sound waves, we cannot hear all of them. Sometimes, a
group of neighborhood dogs start barking on their own, while
the residents living in the area are left wondering what
provoke the dogs to bark. One possible reason could be that
the dogs might have heard some unfamiliar high-pitched
sound, which the residents did not hear. Our ears are
sensitive only to a certain range of frequencies, 20Hz to
20,000Hz.
Dogs have ability to hear every high-pitched sounds, which
we cannot hear. Sound waves of frequencies below 20 Hz is
called infrasonic waves, and those frequencies above
20,000Hz are called ultrasonic waves.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS:
We find certain sounds pleasant and associate them with
music. In a musical sound, there are a number of frequencies
present in the definite ratio or relation to each other. The
musical instruments
In stringed are classified into the following three
In wind
categories:
instrument
instrument
s such as
such as flute
guitar
sound is
sound is In
produced by
produced percussion
the vibrating
by a instruments
air column
vibrating such as
inside the
string. table, sound
instrument
is produced
by vibrating
NOISE:
Unpleasant, discomfort-causing sound from any source is called noise.
Sustained presence of harmful, unwanted or annoying noise in the
environment is called noise pollution.
SOURCES OF NOISE POLLUTION: automobiles, blaring loudspeaker,
television and radio, air coolers and air conditioner.
HARMFUL EFFECTS OF NOISE POLLUTION:
 Irritation and loss of concentration
 Sleeping disturbance and stress
 Ear damage and loss of hearing.
MEASURES TO REDUCE NOISE POLLUTION:
 The use of loudspeaker should be avoided.
 People living in flats should not talk loudly.
 While driving, people should avoid playing loud music.