Question

distinguish between loudness and intensity of sound.

Answer 1

Dear student,

intensity is how strong your sound meter reads that a sound is, loudness is how strong your ear perceives it is. They're quite different scales, because your nervous system tries to take in much more range for signals than a simple, linear detector would be able to detect.

To be precise, Loudness is related to the amplitude of sound waves (or pressure amplitude/ displacement relative to atmospheric pressure, typically), whereas intensity is the rate at which power (rate of energy transfer, or work per unit time) is transferred across a given area (Power/Area, or rate of energy transfer per unit area; units of watts/m²).


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