Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• explain correctly the meaning of the emboldened terms in the main text and use them correctly in context

• describe simply what a pressure wave is and give a simple explanation of sound in terms of a travelling pressure wave

• explain ‘cycle’ in terms of an oscillating source and the pressure wave it produces

• relate amplitude (including peak-to-peak and r.m.s.), frequency, period and wavelength to a sinusoidal waveform

• calculate the wavelength of a pressure wave from a graph of pressure against distance