How do microphones work? I just do not get it.
In: 85
First: how electricity works. (Don’t worry, it’ll make sense)
Electricity is closely related to magnetism. If you’ve played with magnets, you’ll know that magnets respond more to each-other than regular magnetic material. What you may not have seen is electricity being made as you pass a magnet over a wire. (The weaker the magnet, the less power is made. You can improve this using coils, but… that’s bonus information). The fun part here is that it works the other way as well – you can make a magnet by sending electricity through a wire.
If you had a semi-flexible material that you put a magnet on, you can start doing some… interesting things.
Sound is vibration, and while magnets can’t usually react to that, your flexible material can. If you mount your magnet near a wire, you could use this property to create a tiny amount of electricity as the material vibrates to the sound. Plug that wire into a system designed to read that wire’s electric output, and you suddenly have a computer that can pick up on sound.
Speakers use the same phenomena, but instead of having the computer read the wire’s electricity levels, it puts electricity into the wire to create a magnet. This allows the computer to repel or attract the magnet on the material, actively influencing the air instead of just reacting to it.
Latest Answers