Tuning Fork Lab

Guiding Question: How does the density of a material affect the properties of sound traveling from a tuning fork? 

Hypothesis: I think that the density of the material will have a large effect on the properties of the sound. I think that the pitch and loudness will be the biggest factors that change.  When the density of the object is higher I think it will be much quieter and the pitch will be much lower. When the object is less dense than the loudness will be much louder and the pitch will be higher.



Procedure:

1. Get a Tuning fork
2. Hit the tuning fork on an object then put the bas of the tuning fork on the object and put your ear to the material. Record how it sounds.
3. Repeat step 2 with 4 other materials
4. Find the densities of all the objects

Controlled Variable: 256 C, same temperature, hard hit

Material	Sound	Density
Desk (Oak)	High pitch, quiet, short	0.65 g/cm3
Wall (Concrete)	Almost no sound	1.1 g/cm3
Metal Rail (Aluminum)	High sound, long	2.7 g/cm3
White Board (Aluminum)	High, Very long	2.7 g/cm3
Wooden Box (Oak)	Low, Buzzing	0.65 g/cm3
Locker (Steel)	Loud, High, screeching	7.859 g/cm3

Conclusion:
This lab was very interesting and I think the most fun in the whole year. The tuning forks were very fun to listen to and the different frequencies made it so much more interesting. The sounds on the different materials were all different so steel didn’t sound like wood and glass didn’t sound like concrete. I think that our tests were accurate because we always hit the tuning fork the same way and had it the right distance away from our ears. The sounds were also very varied which made it interesting to see what the different sounds were. I think the most intense sound was the wooden box because it was made to project sound of the tuning fork. My hypothesis was mostly correct although I was surprised to see that concrete was less dense than aluminum. Even though the wall was less dense than the metal railing the concrete wall made almost no sound which surprised me when I saw the densities.

Further Inquiry:
This lab was very interesting to me and taught me a lot about the way sound travels and also the density of some materials. It was fun to see how the distance that your ear was from the object affected the sound and also to hear the different frequencies although we didn’t use them in our test. When we tried the metal railing it was interesting because I tried going very far away from where the tuning fork was and the sound was still very clear. It was strange to me when I heard that sound travelled slower through air than other materials so it was cool to hear it in reality. The sound would usually be very bad when it went through air but if you put your ear to it it would be very clear. This was my favorite lab this year and I hope that we will have more like this one.


Bibliography:


Wolfram Alpha. "Density of Oak - Wolfram|Alpha." Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Density of oak>.


Wolfram Alpha. "Density of Concrete." Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Density+of+Concrete>.


Wolfram Alpha. "Density of Aluminum - Wolfram|Alpha." Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Density of Aluminum>.


Wolfram Alpha. "Density of Steel - Wolfram|Alpha." Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Density of Steel>.