CofC Link
Physics & Astro Link


BASIC LINKS

Syllabus: (PDF)

Email Dr. Larsen

Dr. Larsen's Main Page

Course Webpage for a somewhat similar course at UNC-Asheville.

Associated youtube videos supporting the UNC-Asheville course



PHYSICS OF SOUND AND MUSIC
                                                           

- WELCOME! -

This is the web-page for Physics 150, Physics of Sound and Music (Spring 2014). Materials on this webpage are meant to supplement information given to you in class itself. I'm not a big fan of OAKS, therefore any on-line supplementary material for the course you need can be found here. To the left, you'll find important links/syllabi/etc.

If you'd like to find out more about me or the research we do in my lab, check out my main webpage.

- About This Course -

This course is an introduction to the Physics of sound production, propagation, and perception designed for a predominantly non-scientific audience. The details of the course content will be largely shaped by student background and interest; this course doesn't really serve as a prerequisite for anything else and it is at the 100-level, so we won't feel overly beholden to "get to" a whole lot of different ideas. I'm hoping that your interest can help shape the course. See the syllabus (link at left) to learn more about course expectations and goals.
Hopefully, we'll learn a little about the science of sound and music and have some fun along the way.

- Homework Assignments -

Assignment 1(PDF) (due 1/10/14)

Assignment 2(PDF) (due 1/17/14)

Assignment 3(PDF) (due 1/24/14)

Assignment 4(PDF) (due 1/31/14)

Assignment 5(PDF) (due 2/7/14)

Assignment 6(PDF) (due 2/14/14)

Assignment 7(PDF) (due 2/21/14)

Assignment 8(PDF) (due 2/28/14)

Assignment 9(PDF) (due 3/14/14)

Assignment 10(PDF) (due 3/28/14)

Assignment 11(PDF) (due 4/4/14). Supporting Links: (Sounds in Space) and (Links for Digital Audio)

Assignment 12(PDF) (due 4/11/14). Supporting Links: (Saxes), (Sax Links), and (Strings)

Assignment 13(PDF) (due 4/18/14)

Assignment 14(PDF) (due 4/25/14) Supporting Links: (Sonoluminescence) and (Pipe Organs)


- Final Exam Information -

For those of you who opted for the final exam option, here's what you need to know.

The final will be comprehensive, based on in-class content as well as the supporting parts of your textbook. In particular, you should have a solid handle on chapters 2-9, the first half of chapter 10, chapter 11, the part of chapter 11 devoted to the sax, the last half of chapter 14, the last half of chapter 21, the first half of chapter 22, and the first half of chapter 29. You should also be aware of the topics that we covered not in your textbook including Sounds in Space, Sonoluminescence, Acoustics of Big Booms, and any other topics we spent at least half of a class lecture on.

The final will be short answer and computational. The best thing you can do to review is to read your old homework. Although all of the topics listed above are fair game, I would spend the bulk of my time studying the content from the first half of the semester (chapters 2-9). If you have any questions on what is or is not likely to be on the final exam, please just ask me.

You are permitted one (1) 8.5 inch by 11 inch piece of paper full of whatever notes you'd like (both sides are permitted). Because you get use of this notesheet, I will not include ANY extra information on the exam itself. Thus, if you think you might need to know some constant -- speed of sound, conversion factors between English/Metric units, terms, etc. -- put it on your sheet!

The exam has been scheduled to be on Tuesday, April 29th from 8-11 AM in our normal classroom (RHSC 108). I will probably open up the doors to the room starting somewhere around 7:30 so you can get a healthy jump on the exam. It is written to take approximately 2.5 hours, but some people work slower than others.

I'm pulling for you, for whatever it is worth.


- Links Aplenty -

What is Up with Noises (Movie shown on Day 1)
Longitudinal Wave Applet
Physics Lecture on Oscillating Systems
Normal Modes (Part 1/4)
Normal Modes (Part 2/4)
Normal Modes (Part 3/4)
Normal Modes (Part 4/4)
Simple Link Between Simple Harmonic Oscillation and Circular Motion
Phet on Oscillations
Phet on Pendula
Phet on Resonances
Making a Rubens Tube
Kundt's Tube Resonance
Chladni Plate
More Chladni Plates (Bow Excitation)
Animation of Human Ear
On-line Tuner
Tone Generator Software (Warning -- watch out for rogue attached software)
Table on Tunings (Scroll Down)
Assorted Cool Sound Applets
Microtonal organ example
Another Physics of Sound and Music Page
Filtering Applet
Signal Processing Applets
Filtering Applet



updated: 12 April 2014