Question

(a) How is sound produced? Explain with the help of an example.
(b) How does sound from a sound producing body travel through air to reach our ears? Illustrate your answer with the help of a labelled diagram.

Answer 1

(a) Sound is produced when an object vibrates and produces continuous compression and rarefaction.
Example: The sound of our voice is produced by the vibrations of two vocal cords in our throat caused by air passing through the lungs.

(b) When an object vibrates, then the air layers around it start to vibrate in exactly the same way and causes successive compression and rarefaction that carry sound waves from the sound-producing object to our ears.
Example: A tuning fork vibrates and produces sound waves in air. Since the prongs of the tuning fork vibrate, the individual layers of air also start to vibrate, creating successive compression and rarefaction. Sound travels in the form of longitudinal waves in which the back and forth vibrations of the air layers are in the same direction as the movement of sound wave.