[no subject]

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

I looked at the speed of sound exercise on this site and I was not
impressed. I used to teach the physics of music. In that course the
students measured the speed of sound using a clever method I read
somewhere which relied on their natural sense of rhythm, and which
will give an order of magnitude better accuracy than the football
field experiment.

Stand 25-35 meters from a large, flat concrete wall. Clap
rhythmically at a rate such that the echoes of your claps return
between the claps without syncopation. When the rhythm is right,
have a helper time twenty claps, measure the distance to the wall,
and calculate the speed of sound from your data.

The idea of making multiple timings of the sound of a beaten can
over the length of a football field is so inelegant that I suggest
you assign it as an ancillary part of the speed of sound exercise.
It will give your students an idea of what clever things physicists
can do when they are thinking hard.

Leigh

> Check out this site.
>
> http://oasis.bellevue.k12.wa.us/himmelman/conceptlabpage.html
>
> fred brace wrote:
>
> > I teach conceptual physics at a high school. I am looking for lab
> > activities in waves and sound. Any ideas?