How do microphones work? I just do not get it.
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Sound is just waves of pressure in the air. Pick up something flat and wave it at your ear like fanning yourself and you can hear the air thumping against your ear.
A microphone has a strip of flexible material that moves when the air pressure hits it (hold a thin piece of paper in front of your face and breathe in and out – note how it moves with the change in air pressure). The flexible piece of material has a magnet taped to the back, so the magnet moves with the material. If you put a loop of wire near a magnet, the movement of the magnet produces a bit of electrical current. The electrical current is higher the farther the magnet moves (greater air pressure change / louder sound), and it has the same frequency as the movement. The microphone simply converts the mechanical force of sound waves into waves of electrical current.
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