Sound waves
are caused by vibrations such as that from a tuning fork, a loudspeaker
cone, or the human voice.
These vibrations need air to travel through. They cannot travel through a vacuum. The air itself doesn't travel. The sound causes compression and decompression of the air as it moves through it. There is a regular spacing between one pressure peak and the next. This distance is called the WAVELENGTH. Sound travels
at about 330 metres a second.
Wavelength x frequency = the speed of sound in metres per second. |