Why must the size of the reflector be larger than the wavelength of the sound wave for reflection to take place?
Sound is a longitudinal wave which travels through the medium (it can’t travel without a medium), by creating a wave of compression and rarefaction alternatively and being a wave it has a fundamental property called diffraction which means when a wave passes through an obstacle it bends towards its edges as you might have observed in case of light passing through a hole or a slit it spreads outwards. You can verify it by using a Laser torch, point it on a wall you will see a small red dot now put a needle or a pen in between the beam of light so that only a part of light can hit the wall, you will see the red line instead of dot, thats diffraction. The diffraction is maximum if the obstacle is smaller and its maximum if the obstacle is smaller then the wavelength of the wave in such case most of the wave is diffracted from the edge and that’s why the amount of wave reflected is negligible. That answers the question Additional info.
Now, Scattering is the phenomenon in which the wave get deflected from its path multiple times and in random directions. Its more like the wave gets diffused in the medium. Reflection is one of the causes of scattering, refraction and diffraction being other causes. Tyndall Effect on foggy morning is a perfect example of scattering.
The size of the particles is an important factor in scattering. If the size is more then the wavelength of wave then the scattering is caused by multiple geometric reflections, which is justified by the first paragraph. Tyndall effect, muddy water are examples of this type of scattering. If the size of the particles is smaller then the wavelength of the wave, for example size of the air molecules is in order of 10^(-12) Picometers whereas the wavelength of visible light is of the order of 10^(-7) (100 nanometers), in such cases the photon (the light particles) hits the gas molecules like oxygen and nitrogen which are very abundant in our atmosphere, the electron of the molecule jumps in the higher energy levels by absorbing the photon and then re-emitting a photon of equal or smaller energy. But the absorption happens only when a single photon has sufficient energy to make the electron jump, two photons can’t contribute to make a single jump. Which is why in our example the blue light which has higher frequency (or smaller wavelength) which means higher energy get scattered by the atmospheric gases almost 9.5 times more then the red light which has lover frequency which means less energy, and thats why we see the sky blue, This is called Raman Scattering.
Sound is a longitudinal wave which travels through the medium (it can’t travel without a medium), by creating a wave of compression and rarefaction alternatively and being a wave it has a fundamental property called diffraction which means when a wave passes through an obstacle it bends towards its edges as you might have observed in case of light passing through a hole or a slit it spreads outwards. You can verify it by using a Laser torch, point it on a wall you will see a small red dot now put a needle or a pen in between the beam of light so that only a part of light can hit the wall, you will see the red line instead of dot, thats diffraction. The diffraction is maximum if the obstacle is smaller and its maximum if the obstacle is smaller then the wavelength of the wave in such case most of the wave is diffracted from the edge and that’s why the amount of wave reflected is negligible. That answers the question Additional info.
Now, Scattering is the phenomenon in which the wave get deflected from its path multiple times and in random directions. Its more like the wave gets diffused in the medium. Reflection is one of the causes of scattering, refraction and diffraction being other causes. Tyndall Effect on foggy morning is a perfect example of scattering.
The size of the particles is an important factor in scattering. If the size is more then the wavelength of wave then the scattering is caused by multiple geometric reflections, which is justified by the first paragraph. Tyndall effect, muddy water are examples of this type of scattering. If the size of the particles is smaller then the wavelength of the wave, for example size of the air molecules is in order of 10^(-12) Picometers whereas the wavelength of visible light is of the order of 10^(-7) (100 nanometers), in such cases the photon (the light particles) hits the gas molecules like oxygen and nitrogen which are very abundant in our atmosphere, the electron of the molecule jumps in the higher energy levels by absorbing the photon and then re-emitting a photon of equal or smaller energy. But the absorption happens only when a single photon has sufficient energy to make the electron jump, two photons can’t contribute to make a single jump. Which is why in our example the blue light which has higher frequency (or smaller wavelength) which means higher energy get scattered by the atmospheric gases almost 9.5 times more then the red light which has lover frequency which means less energy, and thats why we see the sky blue, This is called Raman Scattering.
