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How do scientists know how acoustics work? (piefed.social)

submitted 2 weeks ago by breb@piefed.social to c/askphysics@lemmy.world

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I've seen lot of theory about how it works.
But how do they get to that conclusion?
As far a i know, you can see that it's air vibrating bc when there's a loud noise you can feel the floor vibrating or if i drop something in a table and i place my hand on it i can feel the table vibrating as well. But how do they know it in more detail. How do they know about the pith and that it's a wave?

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[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (6 children)

Virtually everything scientists know about sound began with microphones which output a voltage wave with the same 'pitch' as the sound wave, and the piezoelectric transducer which enabled extremely sensitive measurements. It's a deep rabbit hole I expect if we go into much detail.

It certainly helped when the cathode-ray tube was able to trace the waves visually in real time.

[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

absolute nonsense

In the 6th century BCE Pythagoras accurately described the overtone series. Aristotle understood that sound was a pressure wave in the air. In the 1st century CE roman architects were designing music halls around their acoustics.

The field started being much more active during the Renaissance and onward. Most of the big names in the field of acoustics predate the invention of microphones.

[–] breb@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

how did Aristotle know it was pressure wave in the air? Did he say any reason for that

[–] iii@mander.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

At that time it was a hypothesis. But the motion of snares was one of his inspirations.

In any case, it's impossible to "proof" anything in physics, you can only disprove things. If enough people fail to disprove a hypothesis, for a long enough time, a hypothesis is generally accepted as true.

An early experiment that supports the hypothesis, was in the 17th century, when experiments in vacuum became possible. Robert Boyle put a mechanical bell inside a vacuum chamber and, as the bell rang, no sound was transmitted. Highly suggesting that the presence of a medium to transfer the motion is important. (1)

Changing the type or amount of gas changes the pitch, again suggesting the medium is important.

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