Solutions to problems on Aspects of Sound

Rossing 5.1 A pipe open at one end and closed at the other has the fundamental resonance frequency at

Rossing 5.2 Take the distance between your two ears as roughly 10 cm. Setting this equal to the wavelength of a sound wave, that sound would have a frequency of 3,440 Hz. The source of sounds with higher frequency than this (smaller wave length) can be localized by intensity differences at your two ears.
Rossing 5.3 The eardrum area is given as 0.55 cm2. Converting this to square meters, the area is 5.5 x 10-5 m2. A pressure of 10-2 N/m2 would result in a force of 5.5 x 10-7 N on the eardrum.
Rossing 5.5 Taking the distance between your two ears as roughly 10 cm, the maximum difference in arrival time of sound at your two ears is 0.1 m / 344 m/s = 2.9 x 10-4 s = 0.29 ms.

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Last updated: 18 Oct 1999
Comments: bland@indiana.edu