Sound Waves Quiz

Understanding Sound Waves: A Detailed Explanation

• Sound is created when an object is hit and starts oscillatory motion, causing the object to vibrate at its natural frequency.
• The vibrating object pushes against air molecules, compressing them and creating a sound wave that moves through the air.
• The sound wave consists of compressions and rarefactions, regions of compressed and rarefied air respectively.
• These compressions and rarefactions move radially outward in all directions until they reach someone's ear.
• The air compressions enter the ear canal and hit the eardrum, causing it to vibrate at the same frequency as the sound wave.
• The eardrum is connected to the hammer bone, which then vibrates and transfers the vibration to the anvil bone.
• The anvil bone is connected to the stirrup bone, which is connected to the cochlea, a snail-shaped structure filled with fluid.
• Inside the cochlea, there are tiny hairs called cilia that are sensitive to vibrations in the fluid.
• Each cilia is sensitive to a different frequency, so the frequency of the sound wave is determined by which cilia are vibrating.
• The cilia are connected to nerve endings that come together into a nerve bundle that goes to the brain.
• The brain interprets the nerve signals as sound and turns it into something we can recognize.
• Sound waves are actually compression waves in the air until they are interpreted by the brain as sound.