Lab: Speed of Sound in Air

Today you are completing the Speed of Sound in Air Lab. This is due on Wednesday. Below are some tips that were posted on the whiteboard.

If you missed this lab, there is a way to do it online, but it's a bit involved. You will have to use two different simulators.

This simulator is the best because it explains the lab and most closely emulates the physical process involved: http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/HTML5/speed_of_sound.html

The only problem is that it only has 3 available frequencies, and we need at least 6 for a good graph. So while I want you to play with this applet, I want you to actually get your data with a different applet:

http://www.physics.smu.edu/~olness/www/05fall1320/applet/pipe-waves.html

You will need to follow the download instructions and run it off of your computer, not in the web browser window. It may not want to run at first because it uses an old version of Java, but just keep hitting “run anyway” and it will work. In the applet, choose “one side open” under "Form of tube" and make sure "Vibrational mode" is set to "Fundamental." Then you can put in different lengths of tubes and write down the frequencies it gives. This is sort of backwards from the real lab, in which we are choosing frequencies and finding the corresponding lengths of tubes, but you will get the same frequency vs. length data in the end.