Sound

By: Damien Armani Ungos

Period 2/3

Sound itself, the one thing that can’t be silenced. A

teacher can find a way to silence a class, and parents can find

ways to quiet their children. However, sound, is a different

story all together. Even silence has its own sound. There are

sounds out there that can make us jump in surprise, or even

make us feel a certain way. Sound, is the, “Face of many

faces.”

The Mechanics of sound:

Sound is the vibrations or waves in the air the we sense

through our ears. Sound is created by a disturbance caused by

elastic material. There are two types of sound waves,

Transverse and longitudinal. You can tell which is which by

the way the waves are propagated; the way the sound is being
transmitted. The transverse wave can be demonstrated by

stretching and elastic rope that when released, the ends wiggle

back and forth. When you hear sound through air, this is

called a longitudinal wave. This can be demonstrated by

grabbing serval turns from a coiled spring forming a

compressed section of the spring and releasing them and

letting them travel the length of the coiled spring. Pitch is how

high or how low sounds are. A higher pitched sound will lead

to more waves or a higher frequency and a lower sound will

lead to less waves or a lower frequency. The strength of the

note that it is played at can also influence wave

lengths. Frequency in equations are labeled as Hertz or HZ or

in some cases, f. To find out wave lengths per second, the

equation would be fT=1 where “f” is the frequency and the “T”

would be the point in space, and the 1, would be the per

second. The higher frequency the note is, the shorter period it

lasts while the lower frequency note, has a longer period

which we can hear it. Music also plays a big role in sound. Out

there, there are different types of music. From pop to classical,

different types of music can make you feel different ways.

When you think of classical music, you think of instruments

such as cellos, or violins. Both instruments are completely

different not just in size, or the way it is played, but the

sounds they can portray. The violin’s highest frequency string

is the E string which is 1319 Hertz and the violins lowest string

is the G string which is 196 Hertz. The cello’s highest string is

the A string which is 440 Hertz and it lowest string is the C

string which is 261.6 Hertz. Each instrument has its own

sound to it depending on the thickness and length of

that string. The thinner the string is, the higher frequency the

string is and the thicker the string is, the lower frequency

string. The pitch of the string can also change by putting

fingers down on the fingerboard on the instrument. Doing this

changes the length of the string that is being vibrated and

changes the pitch of the string. The more fingers you put

down, the higher pitch the sound will be, and the higher

frequency will be. The distance from the bridge; the wooden

piece of an orchestra instrument that keeps the strings

aligned, can affect how the note sounds as well. The closer you

put your fingers to the bridge, the higher the frequency the

note will be.

The History of Sound:

Sound had been introduced as the “Big Bang” happened,

though out of surprise, researchers said it did not actually

sound like a bang. The air would have been far too dense for

which, there is no atmosphere in space, would have made a

sound far different then the “bang” we think of. But with new

technology (Researchers made from satellite readings) a sound

that may or may have not sounded like the “Big Bang”.

The first organisms to have heard sound was said to be

the Boney Fish that lived about 400 million years ago. The
Boney Fish developed a way to feel vibrations by changing an

organ that was used to balance themselves in water. Soon, the

Triassic Period came to be and that was when the first

natural ear drums were born. And thus, the ability to hear.

About 65 million years later, Humans appeared on

Earth. To this day we still don’t know the exact way we got

here, but like the dinosaurs before us, we had the ability to

hear, and so we had heard many things. Wind, trees blowing,

and animals. By around 1857, Édouard-Léon Scott de

Martinville had recorded sound using his invention, the

Phonautograph. In 1875, a man by the name Alexander

Graham Bell made the first “Telephone” with two receivers

and a wire. His invention changed the world of

communication and it’s one more step to connecting people

around the world. Then in the early 1900’s, Reginald Aubrey

Fessenden had sent his voice between two large buildings near

the Potomac River. 75 years later, Martin Copper had the first
actual phone call. And surprisingly, it was sent to his

competitor who was also working on cellphone technology, Joel

Engel. Today, across the world, we still use cellphones to send

our voices to others around us. From the first sense created, to

the last thing that will be heard, sound.

Alexander Graham Bell

On March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alexander

Graham Bell was born. His parents, Alexander Melvile Bell

and Eliza Bell were both successful in profession. Bell’s

mother was deaf, but that didn’t stop her from becoming

a painter and a pianist. And Bell’s father, had

a vast knowledge of voice and elocution; the ability to speak

very expressive speeches. Alexander Graham Bell started his

work be learning different things from his father and his

projects such as visible speech for the deaf. On 1874, Bell had

begun working by a man named Thomas Watson on his

design for the first design of the phone. Bell was the one who

gave the ideas and Watson was the one who made the

inventions come to life. To test Watson’s design, he worked

with a total of 30 patients. On June 2, 1875, he had perfected

his and Watson’s invention and made the first phone call. He

had shared his invention to everyone, even to Dom Pedro, the

Emperor of Brazil. Dom’s first expression was to Bell’s

creation was, “My God, it talks!” On February 14, 1876, his

invention became his own and no one could steal it, at least

for a set amount of years. In 1877, his very own cell company

was formed, the Bell Telephone Company. In the rest of his life,

he studied and joined other types of big associations such as

the Smithsonian. On August 2, 1922, he passed

away in Baddeck Nova Scotia, Canada. In memory of him, the

phone company he started was shut down for one minute to

tribute to the life of Alexander Graham Bell. He may not be

alive, but his inventions and his legacy that he has left has

changed the world of communication, and sound.

In conclusion, sound is the one thing that can’t be

silenced. We learn, smile, and laugh from all the things we

hear. Maybe a teacher is giving a lesson. Maybe on Christmas

day, you unravel your present. Or maybe your best friend told

you a joke. These events all have sounds that are heard that

trigger different reactions or other events. Either way, we

hear things from the people and things around us. What do

you hear?

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