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DISCUSSION 1. In measuring the speed of sound in aluminum, what assumption did w

ID: 1576794 • Letter: D

Question

DISCUSSION 1. In measuring the speed of sound in aluminum, what assumption did we make about how waves travel from one medium (aluminum) to another (air)? (Note that the speed of sound in air at room temperature is about 340 m/s). [0.5] 2. When measuring standing waves on a string it was a reasonable approximation to say that there was a node at the end of the string where the vibrating source was, similar to how one describes reed instruments (e.g. clarinets) as closed at the reed end. How did we know that this end was almost a node, and how could the error in this approximation be reduced? [l]

Explanation / Answer

Sound waves are the longitudinal form of waves. They travel from one medium to anther, the wavelength and velocity of the sound changes but the frequency remains constant as the frequency of the sound depends on the source through which it is produced.

So we have considered the constant frequency and calculated the speed of sound based on that.