A 472-Hz tuning fork is sounded together with an out-of-tune guitar string, and a beat frequency of 3 Hz is heard. When the string is tightened, the frequency at which it vibrates increases, and the beat frequency is heard to decrease. What was the original frequency of the guitar string?
Properties of sound
A sound wave is a mechanical wave (or mechanical vibration) that transit through media such as gas (air), liquid (water), and solid (wood).
Quality Of Sound
A sound or a sound wave is defined as the energy produced due to the vibrations of particles in a medium. When any medium produces a disturbance or vibrations, it causes a movement in the air particles which produces sound waves. Molecules in the air vibrate about a certain average position and create compressions and rarefactions. This is called pitch which is defined as the frequency of sound. The frequency is defined as the number of oscillations in pressure per second.
Categories of Sound Wave
People perceive sound in different ways, like a medico student takes sound as vibration produced by objects reaching the human eardrum. A physicist perceives sound as vibration produced by an object, which produces disturbances in nearby air molecules that travel further. Both of them describe it as vibration generated by an object, the difference is one talks about how it is received and other deals with how it travels and propagates across various mediums.
In Concept Simulation 17.2 you can explore the concepts that are important in this problem. A 472-Hz tuning fork is sounded together with an out-of-tune guitar string, and a beat frequency of 3 Hz is heard. When the string is tightened, the frequency at which it vibrates increases, and the beat frequency is heard to decrease. What was the original frequency of the guitar string?
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