Part 52

We have seen that the decrease in intensity of a sound wave as it travels through the air, is due to the fact that the quantity of air set in motion by it is constantly increasing. But, if a wave is conveyed through a tube containing air, the quantity of air to which the vibrations are communicated does not increase as the wave travels forward, and theoretically there is no decrease in intensity. When a wave is actually transmitted in this way, however, it is found that there is some decrease in intensity on account of the friction of the

## particles of air against the sides of the tube; but the decrease from

this cause is much slower than that which occurs in the open air, and consequently sounds can be heard at much greater distances through tubes than through the open air. Tubes for speaking purposes are frequently used to connect different parts of the same building, and if the tubes are not too crooked they serve their purpose very well.

Pitch is that property of sounds that determines whether they are high or low. The pitch of a sound depends upon the number of vibrations a second which the body that produces it makes. The sound of an explosion has no pitch because it makes but one wave in the air. The sound made by a wagon on a pavement has no definite pitch, for it is a mixture of sounds, in which the number of vibrations per second is not the same. Pitch is a property of continuous sounds only, and it is apparent chiefly in musical sounds, by which we mean sounds in which the vibrations are continuous and regular. In music, however, pitch is very important. In a musical instrument, the parts are so arranged that the sounds produced can be given any desired pitch, and it is by controlling the pitch that the pleasing effect of musical sounds in large measure is produced. Sounds of low pitch are produced by bodies making but a few vibrations a second while high-pitched sounds are made by bodies that vibrate rapidly.

Quality, may be defined as that property of sounds which enable us to distinguish the notes produced by different instruments. Two notes, one of which is produced upon a piano, and the other upon a violin, may have the same pitch and be equally loud, yet they are easily distinguishable. The difference in them is due to the presence of what are called overtones.

What Is Meant By the Length of Sound Waves?

The length of a sound wave embraces the distance from the point of greatest compression in one wave to the same point in the next. This depends upon the pitch for if a sounding body is making one hundred vibrations a second, by the time the one hundredth vibration is made, the wave from the first vibration will have travelled about eleven hundred feet from the starting point, and the remaining ninety-eight waves will lie between the first and the one hundredth. In consequence of this, the wave length for that particular sound will be about eleven feet. If the sounding body had made eleven hundred vibrations a second by the time the first wave had travelled eleven hundred feet, there would have been eleven hundred waves produced, and the wave length for that sound would be one foot. The wave lengths of sounds produced by the human voice usually lay between one and eight feet, though some singers have produced notes having wave lengths as great as eighteen feet, and others have reached notes so high that the wave length was only about nine inches.

When a tuning fork is struck, it produces a sound so faint that it can scarcely be heard unless the fork is held near the ear; but if the end of the fork is held on a box or table, the sound rings out loudly and seems to come from the table. The explanation of this is very simple. When only the fork vibrates, it produces very small sound waves, because its prongs are small and cut through the air. But when it is set on a box or table, its vibrations are communicated to the support, and the broader surface of the box or table sets a larger mass of air in vibration, and so amplifies the sound of the fork. When a surface is used in this way to reinforce the vibrations of a small body, and thus produce sound waves of greater volume, it is called a sounding board. Many musical instruments, like the violin and the piano, owe the intensity of their sounds to sounding boards, which reinforce the vibrations of their strings.

~WHAT A SOUNDING BOARD DOES~

Columns of air, like sounding boards, serve to reinforce sound waves. Unlike sounding boards, however, they do not respond equally well to a large number of different sounds. They respond to one sound only, or to several widely different ones. This may be shown as follows: Take a glass tube about sixteen inches long, and two inches in diameter, and after thrusting one end of it into a vessel of water, hold a vibrating tuning fork over the other end. By gradually lowering the tube into the water a point will be reached at which the sound becomes very loud, and as this point is passed the sound gradually dies away again. By raising the tube again the sound is again made loud when the tube reaches a certain point. This shows that to reinforce sound waves of a certain vibration frequency, the column of air in the tube must be of certain length.

Let us now see why the waves produced by the tuning fork are reinforced only by a column of air of a certain length. When the prongs of the fork make a vibration, a wave of air is produced which enters the tube, goes down to the water, is reflected, and comes back toward the fork. Now, if the reflected wave reaches the fork at the precise moment when it has completed one-half of its vibration and is about to begin upon the second half, it will strengthen the wave produced by the second half of the vibration; but if the reflected wave reaches the fork before or after the beginning of the second half of the vibration, it will not reinforce it. At the downward movement of the lower prong of the tuning fork, a wave of compression is sent down into the tube, and is reflected at the surface of the water. In order to reinforce the wave produced by the prong when it moves upward, the reflected wave must reach the fork just at the time that the prong reaches its normal position and before it starts upon the second half of its vibration.

Not only do columns of air tend to reinforce notes having a certain rate of vibration, but all elastic bodies have a certain rate at which they tend to vibrate, and when sounds having the same rate of vibration are produced near them, these bodies will vibrate in sympathy with them. If the sounds be kept up long enough, the sympathetic vibrations in objects near them sometimes become so great that they can easily be seen. Goblets and tumblers made of thin glass show this property very strikingly. When the proper notes are sounded the glasses take up the vibrations, and give a sound of the same pitch. If the note is loud, and is continued for some time, the vibrations of a glass sometimes become so great that the glass breaks. Large buildings, and bridges also, have rates at which they tend to vibrate, and this fact is the foundation for the old saying, that a man may fiddle a bridge down, if he fiddles long enough.

Musical Instruments.

By musical sounds, are meant sounds that are pleasant to hear, and their combination in such a way that their effect is agreeable produces music. Any instrument, therefore, that is capable of producing pleasing sounds may be called a musical instrument, and music is sometimes produced by very odd devices; but by musical instruments we ordinarily mean instruments that are especially designed to produce musical sounds. The number of such instruments that have been invented is enormous, but all of them may be divided into comparatively few classes, only two of which are of much importance. The two classes, only two of which are of much importance. The two classes referred to are stringed instruments and wind instruments.

~WHAT PITCH IS IN MUSIC~

Stringed musical instruments are those in which the sounds are produced by the vibration of a number of strings, and are generally reinforced by a sounding board. The strings are arranged in the instruments in such a way that the pitch of the sound produced by each string shall bear relation to the pitch of those obtained from the other strings. As long as this relation exists, the instrument is said to be in tune, and when the relation is destroyed, the instrument is out of tune, and the music produced by it is apt to contain what we call discords.

The conditions that determine the pitch of sounds produced by strings can be very easily discovered by experiment. Thus, by taking two pieces of the same wire, one twice as long as the other, and stretching them equally, you will observe on striking them that the shorter one yields the higher note. If their vibration frequencies are measured it will be found that the shorter string has a vibration frequency just twice as great as that of the longer string. From this we conclude that when two strings of the same size (and material) are stretched equally taut, their vibration frequencies are inversely proportional to their lengths.

By now taking two pieces of wire, of the same size and length, and stretching them so that the tension of one is four times as great as that of the other, we shall find that the vibration frequency of the tighter string is just twice as great as that of the looser. Thus, we see that the vibration frequency depends upon the tension applied to a string, and, that in strings of the same size and length, the vibration frequencies are proportional to the square roots of their tensions.

Now taking two strings of the same length, but with the diameter of one twice as great as that of the other, and stretching them equally, we shall find that the vibration frequency of the smaller string is twice that of the larger; which shows that when the lengths and tensions of two strings are equal, their vibration frequencies are inversely proportional to their diameters.

In constructing stringed instruments, advantage is taken of each of these conditions that affect the vibration of strings, and the requisite pitch is secured in a string by choosing one of convenient length and diameter, and by stretching it to just the right tension.

When a string is plucked in the middle, it vibrates as a whole, and its rate of vibration, or vibration frequency, is determined by the three conditions that have just been discussed; but if a finger is laid on the string, in the middle, and the string is plucked between the middle and the end, the string will vibrate in halves, and the middle point will remain at rest. If the string had been touched at a point one-fourth of the length from the end it would have vibrated in fourths, and there would have been three stationary points.

When vibrations are set up in a string, with nothing to prevent the free vibration of the whole string, it first vibrates as a whole, and the sound produced is known as the fundamental tone of the string; but very soon smaller vibrations of segments of the string begin, first of halves of the string, then of thirds, and then of fourths. These smaller vibrations produce sound waves that blend with the fundamental tone and are known as overtones. The combined sound of the fundamental tone and the overtones is called a note. The overtones present in notes that have the same fundamental tone are not the same when the notes are produced by different instruments, and, consequently, the sound of notes of the same pitch is not the same on different instruments. This difference in notes of the same pitch has already been mentioned, but the way in which overtones are produced was not explained in connection with it.

In wind instruments the sounds are produced by the vibrations of columns of air in pipes. In the organ, which is probably the best example of a wind instrument, the vibrations are usually produced by causing a current of air to strike a sharp edge, just above the opening of the pipe, as is done in a common whistle. A portion of the air current is deflected into the organ pipe, and it sets up vibrations in the air within the pipe.

The pitch of the sound produced by an organ pipe is determined by the length of the pipe. A pipe that is open at both ends, called an open pipe, produces a sound that has a wave length twice as great as the length of the pipe; and if the pipe is open at one end only, a closed pipe, the sound produced has a wave length twice the length of the open pipe. Hence it will be seen that a closed pipe produces a sound that has the same pitch as that produced by an open pipe that is twice as long.

Talking Machines.

The phonograph, graphophone, gramophone, sonophone, and other talking machines, furnish one of the best proofs of the wave theory of sound, because their invention was based upon that theory. The first talking machine was that invented by Thomas A. Edison and called by him the phonograph. The others merely show the principle of the phonograph applied in different ways, and need not be separately described. The reasoning that led Edison to invent the phonograph was that if the sound waves produced by the human voice were allowed to strike a thick disk of hard rubber or metal, they would cause the disk to vibrate in a certain way, and if the disk were again made to vibrate as it had done under the influence of the voice, the sounds of the voice would be reproduced. The difficult part of the task of making a talking machine was in finding a way to make the disk vibrate again as it did under the influence of the voice. This, however, was finally accomplished, providing the disk with a needle, that rests on a cylinder of hard wax, which turns slowly under the point of the needle while the sound waves are striking the disk. The vibrations of the disk cause the point to indent the surface of the wax so as to produce a groove of varying depth on its surface. After the vibrations of the speaker’s voice have been recorded in this way on the surface of the wax cylinder the needle can be made to retrace its path, and will cause the disk to vibrate as it did under the tones of the speaker’s voice. These last vibrations of the disk produce sound waves similar to those of the voice, but their amplitude is less and the sound is not so loud.

Why Does Red Make a Bull Angry?

It is very doubtful if a red flag really makes a bull more excited or more quickly than a rag of any other color or any other object which the bull can see plainly but does not understand. Conceding for the moment that red excites a bull more than any other color, the answer to the question will be found in the statement that anything unusual which the bull sees has a tendency to make him angry and the thing which he can see at a distance more quickly will start him going most quickly. He can see a red rag better perhaps than almost any other color. There may be something about the color which excites him just as some notes on the piano will worry some dogs, but there is no way of studying the bull’s anatomy to determine why red should excite him more than any other color, if that is so.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

HOW A KEY TURNS A LOCK

What Happens When the Knob is Turned?

All of that portion of the lock which is shown above the round central post is operated by the knob, the spindle of which passes through the square hole. Before the knob is turned, the parts are in the position shown in figure 2, with the latch bolt protruding. Turning the knob to the left gives the position shown in figure 1, the upper lever in the hub pushing back the yoke, which in turn pushes back the latch bolt. When the hand is removed, the springs cause the parts to return to the position shown in figure 2. Turning the knob to the right also retracts the latch bolt, as shown in figure 3, by means of the lower lever on the hub.

The spiral spring on the latch bolt is lighter than the one above it. This gives an easy, lively action to the bolt, with very little friction when the door is closed, while the heavier spring above gives a quick and positive action of the knobs.

What Happens When the Key is Turned?

All of that portion of the lock which is shown below the round central post is operated by the key. The square stud is attached to the bolt, and in figure 1, it is seen that the projections on the flat tumblers prevent the stud from moving forward, holding the bolt in retracted position. When the key is turned as shown in figure 2, it raises the tumblers releasing the stud, and then pushes the bolt out, the tumblers falling into position as shown in figure 3, with the projections again engaging the stud and preventing the bolt from moving until the key is turned backward, again raising the tumblers and releasing and retracting the bolt.

How Key Changes Are Provided.

There are three ways in which keys are made individual to the locks they fit.

_a._ By changing the shape of the keyhole. This may be done shorter or longer, wide or narrow, straight or tapering and with projections on the sides which the key must fit, making it difficult or impossible for keys of a different class to enter the lock. In the lock shown, a projection on the keyhole will be noted, fitting a groove in the bit of the key.

_b._ By wards attached to the lock-case. The two crescent-shaped wards seen near the key in figure 2 illustrate this feature. Similar wards are placed on the lock cover. These fit into the two notches shown on the key bit in figure 4, and their shape and position are varied at will.

_c._ By changes in the tumblers. There are five flat tumblers in the lock shown, and their lower edges fit into the end of the key bit. By varying their height, changes in the cutting of the key are made necessary.

The security of a lock depends very largely upon its being so made that no key will operate it except the one which belongs to it, and this is obtained by guarding the keyhole by means of _a_, by preventing the wrong key from turning by means of _b_, and by still further limitations by means of _c_.

[Illustration: HOW A CYLINDER LOCK WORKS]

[Illustration: FIGURE 1. PARTS OF CYLINDER LOCK.]

[Illustration: FIGURE 2.

FACE OF CYLINDER LOCK.]

The Cylinder Lock.

Door locks of the highest grade of security are made with a locking cylinder, which contains tumblers in the form of miniature bolts which make it impossible to operate the lock except with the key to which it is fitted. This is screwed into the lock-case through the side of the door, with the lever on the inner end engaging the end of the bolt in the lock, so that as it is moved it either retracts or “throws” the bolt as desired.

Figure 1 shows all the parts of a modern master-keyed lock. Figure 4 shows a broken view of the cylinder with all parts in position. Figure 3 shows a simpler form used when the master key is not desired. Figure 2 shows the front, the only part which is visible when the lock is in use, with its keyway of tortuous shape which will not admit flat-picking tools.

When the lock is assembled, the pin tumblers project through the shell, the master cylinder and the key plug holding all parts firmly bolted or fastened together. When the proper key is inserted, the tumblers are raised until the “breaks” in all of them coincide with the surface of the key plug, releasing it and permitting the key to turn it. If any one of the five tumblers is .002 inch too high or too low, the key will not turn; so that no key except the one made for the lock can be used.

In the master-keyed lock, the master key causes the breaks to coincide with the outer surface of the master ring. It is thus possible to have a master key which will fit any desired number of locks with the individual or change keys all different from each other and from the master key.

The balls reduce friction to such an extent that a key has been inserted and withdrawn for a million times without affecting the accuracy of the lock.

[Illustration: FIGURE 3.

INTERIOR OF CYLINDER LOCK WITHOUT MASTER KEY.]

[Illustration: FIGURE 4.

INTERIOR OF MASTER-KEYED CYLINDER LOCK.]

Where Does Salt Come From?

Salt is one of the things with which we come in contact with daily perhaps more than any other. With the exception of water, probably no one thing is used more by all civilized people than salt.

You have already learned in our talk on elements the difference between a mere mixture of substances and a chemical compound. You remember that when some substances are only mixed together, they do not lose their identity. In a compound the substances are always combined in fixed proportions and the properties of the compound are often very different from those of the things that make it. Common salt is made of two substances, that are not at all like salt, and are very different from each other. One, sodium, is a soft, bluish metal, and the other is chlorine, a yellowish-green gas. The chemical name for salt is sodium chloride which is derived from the two names sodium and chlorine.

Sodium and chlorine are both what we have learned to call elements. An element being a substance which cannot be separated into substances of different kinds. There are now known about seventy such elements. All the substances around us are composed of these elements alone, or chemically united in different compounds, or simply mixed together. Most of them, however, are mixtures, not of separate elements, but of compounds. The soil under our feet is a mixture of compounds. Water is also a compound. Pure compounds very rarely occur naturally. Salt is sometimes found almost pure; but generally is mixed with so many other things that we have to take them out to get absolutely pure salt. For practical every-day use it is unnecessary to purify the salt.