I get constructive and deconstructive, but those are usually in the context of being the same frequency and just being out of phase. I’m talking like…you and your bud having a conversation in a restaurant, with music playing, convos around you, sound of wait staff, etc. If a waiter drops a plate, how does that sound transit through at that higher, unique frequency through all the other noise so that all can hear it?
Thank you for your time!
In: Physics
A simple sound wave happens when a parcel of air gets compressed, so its pressure is higher than average. This causes neighboring neighboring parcels of air to get compressed, and so on. The compression travels outward in all directions at the speed of sound. At the same time, the original parcel gets uncompressed, so its pressure is lower than average, causing its neighbors to get uncompressed, and so on, so each wave travels as a series of pressure peaks and troughs.
A sustained sound happens when something is causing these compressions and compressions to happen over and over again. Think of a violin string, a speaker, or a larynx.
When two sound waves meet or cross, the pressure deviations simply add.* Other than that, the waves pass through each other without affecting each other. Our ears can sense the pressure deviations and analyze them to understand that they came from different sources of sound – really an amazing system. But as long as the waves simply add, there’s nothing to cause one sound to actually block another, though the one sound might be so loud we don’t notice the other.
* When sounds get extremely loud, the “simple addition” rule breaks down. Very great increases in pressure can affect the temperature enough that the air’s response is no longer linear. And reductions in pressure can only accumulate so far before the pressure in the trough of a wave is reduced to zero, and can”t reduce further.
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