History of Sound waves

Pythagoras first notice the relationship between vibrating string and the tone it produce. The
understanding that sound is the result of waves created in air was first developed by Leonardo
da Vinci around 1500 A.D.He noticed that vibrating a wooden table on which dust lay created
various shapes.
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'I say then that when a table is struck in different places the dust that is upon it is

reduced to various shapes of mounds and tiny hillocks. The dust descends from the
hypotenuse of these hillocks, enters beneath their base and raises itself again
around the axis of the point of the hillock.
Then it is further developed by other scientist such as Galileo. In 1600 , Galileo demonstrated
that the frequency of sound waves determined the pitch. This was done by scraping a chisel
across a brass plate producing a screech. Galileo then related the spacing of the grooves
induced by the chisel to the pitch of the screech. However even then the nature of sound as
form of waves was not established beyond doubt. This realization came slowly with contribution
of many different scientists. About 1640 the French mathematician Marin Mersenne conducted
the first experiments to determine the speed of sound in air. Then Robert Boyle demonstrated
that the transmission of sound required a mediumby showing that the ringing of a bell in a jar
from which the air had been pumped could not be heard and this lead to the concept that
sound is a pressure change. Later Sir Issac Newton established the correct relationship between
speed of sound in a medium and the density and compressibility of the medium. Newton's
equation is missing the heat ratio,(late 1660's). Maxwell was the first to derive the speed of
sound for gas as from particles (statistical) mechanics. Much work on waves in general was
done during the 19th century. Thomas Young, an English physicist, did research especially on
diffraction and interference. Christian Johann Doppler of Austria formulated the mathematical
relationship between the actual and perceived frequencies of waves when the source of the
waves is moving relative to the observer.

SOUND WAVES IN WATER

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Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Mac Curdy, E. 1938. Jonathan Cape, London.

Sonar essentially used sound waves to operate.So lets take a look when a sound waves travel
through water. Even though sound waves in water and sound waves in air are basically similar,
the way that sound levels in water and sound levels in air are reported is very different, and
comparing sound levels in water and air must be done carefully. When gas is the transmitting
medium, the denser the gas, the slower the speed of sound, and yet the speed of sound in
water is about four times greater than that in air. Although this seems to be false, it is not,
because there several important factor that influences the speed of sound.

Bulk Modulus
Elasticity is defined as that property of a body that causes it to resist deformation and to
recover its original shape and size when the deforming forces are removed. Of specific concern
is volume elasticity or bulk modulus - that is, the ratio of force per unit area (stress) to the
change in volume per unit volume (strain).
Strain
In order to bring about a change in the volume of a liquid, it is necessary to exert a force of
much greater magnitude than is required to bring about an equivalent change in the same
volume of air. Therefore, the value of bulk modulus is much greater for a liquid than for a gas.
This bit of information, however, is meaningless until it is applied in the formula for the speed
of sound.
The speed of sound, c, in a fluid is equal to the square root of the ratio of bulk modulus to
density.
Another factor is density.Although water is denser than air, the enormous bulk modulus of
water is the more important factor determining sound speed. Of concern, however, are not the
differences of the two mediums but the conditions in water that cause changes in sound speed.
This variation in sound speed is one of the most important characteristics affecting the
transmission of sound.

The main environmental factors affecting the speed of sound in the water are pressure, and
temperature.
Pressure
As the we go deeper into the water its pressure increase.It also cause a change in bulk
modulus and density, and the result is an increase in sound speed for every meter of depth
increase. This slight change, which is important when temperature remains constant, causes a
sound beam to bend upward at great depths
Temperature
As the temperature of a medium decreases, bulk modulus decreases while density increases.
Considering these effects in terms of the sound speed formula ,it is clear that a decrease in
temperature brings an attendant decrease in sound speed. It also should be noted that
temperature differs bulk modulus and density at a variable rate. A change in temperature at
one point on the scale, therefore, affects sound speed differently than an equal change at
another point on the scale.