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Definition: sound from Dictionary of Energy

Physics. 1. a pressure disturbance that propagates through a medium due to the stress or displacement of the medium from its equilibrium state. 2. the auditory sensation that is induced by such a disturbance, which in humans is perceived by the ears. Sound moves through dry air at a speed of about 331 meters per second (740 miles per hour), assuming standard atmospheric pressure and a temperature of 0°C.


sound

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
any disturbance that travels through an elastic medium such as air, ground, or water to be heard by the human ear. When a body vibrates, or moves back and forth (see vibration ), the oscillation causes a periodic disturbance of the surrounding air or other medium that radiates outward in straight lines in the form of a pressure wave . The effect these waves produce upon the ear is perceived as sound. From the point of view of physics, sound is considered to be the waves of vibratory motion themselves, whether or not they are heard by the human ear. Sound waves are generated by any vibrating body. For example, when a violin string vibrates upon being bowed or plucked, its movement in one direction pushes the molecules of the air before it, crowding them together in its path. When it moves back again past its original position and on to the other side, it leaves behind it a nearly empty space, i.e., a space with relatively few molecules in it. In the meantime, however, the molecules…
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From Word Origins
English has no fewer than four distinct words sound . The oldest, ‘channel, strait’ [OE], originally meant ‘swimming’. It came from a prehistoric Germanic *sundam , a derivative of the base *sum-, *swem - ‘swim’ (source of English swim ). The sense ‘channel’ was adopted from a related Scandinavian…
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From Philip's Encyclopedia
Physiological sensation perceived by the brain via the ear , caused by an oscillating source, and transmitted through a material medium as a sound wave. The velocity at which a sound wave travels through a medium depends on the elasticity of the medium and its density. If the medium is a gas, the…
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Full text Article sound

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
any disturbance that travels through an elastic medium such as air, ground, or water to be heard by the human ear. When a body vibrates, or moves back and forth (see vibration ), the oscillation causes a periodic disturbance of the surrounding air or other medium that radiates outward in straight…
| 1,006 words
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Full text Article Sound

From The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion
The regime of modernity, and postmodernity as well, privileges the visual in the hierarchy of the senses. Sound and soundscapes are often neglected aspects of the social contexts studied by social scientists. Most of the scholarship on sound in religious contexts focuses on music. Sound studies is a…
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Full text Article Sound

From The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media
Sound
Since the 1960s there has been a shift in the way people listen. In their introduction to the book Audio Culure: Readings in Modern Music , editors Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner say that there has been a dramatic increase in “musicians, composers, sound artists, scholars, and listeners attentive…
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Full text Article SOUND

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
American writer The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod Chapter III (p. 43 ) The Macmillan Co. New York New York USA . 2003. …
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From The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
This synthetic account of sound in poetry will recognize important devels. in poetry, poetics, literary theory and crit., ling., acoustics, and cognitive science without attempting to privilege one kind of knowledge over another. The topic of sound in poetry often raises an unresolvable theoretical…
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From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Physiological sensation received by the ear, originating in a vibration causing sound waves. The sound waves are pressure variations in the air and travel in every direction, spreading out as an expanding sphere. Sound energy cannot travel in a vacuum. All sound waves in air travel with a speed…
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From The Encyclopedia of Tourism and Recreation in Marine Environments
The term sound describes vibrations of matter that produce relatively small changes in the pressure (as compared with atmospheric pressure) that can, within certain limits, be detected by the human ear. Sound is created by a source, transferred by a medium (such as water or air) and detected by a…
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From The New Penguin Dictionary of Music
The substance or the medium of music. Music is an art of sound unfolding through TIME , and an art of time unfolding through sound. Sound is vibration, transmitted from the sounding body to the ear by means of fluctuations in air pressure. These fluctuations are of three essential kinds: they may…
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