A train is moving past a crossing where cars are waiting for it to pass. While waiting, the driver of the lead car becomes sleepy and rests his head on the steering wheel, unintentionally activating the car's horn. A passenger in the back of the train hears the horn's sound at a frequency of 431 Hz and a passenger in the front hears it at 407 Hz. Find the train's speed and the horn's frequency, assuming the sound travels along the tracks. Take the speed of sound to be 343 m/s. (a)the train's speed (in m/s) m/s (b)the horn's frequency (in Hz) Hz
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.
Given:
The frequency heard by a passenger on the back of the train is 431 Hz.
The passenger at the front hears the frequency is 407 Hz.
The speed of sound is 343 m/s.
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