Tuning Fork Lab

Guiding Question: How does the density of a material affect the properties of sound travelling from a tuning fork?
Hypothesis: The denser the material, the softer/lower the sound
Materials:
1. tuning forks: 512, 320
2. table
3. wooden stool
4. radiator
5. plastic tub
6. white board
7. locker
Procedure:
1. Take the first tuning fork (512) and hit it on the first material. Listen to how loud the sound is. Do this with all of the materials and order them from quietest to loudest in a graph. Find the density of all of the materials you hit the tuning fork on, and determine whether the density had effect on the loudness of the sound.
2. Continue testing with the same materials and and a different tuning fork (320). Graph results.

512	oak table (0.65 grams per cubic cm.)	Locker (7.859 grams per cubic cm.)	white board (0.57 grams per cubic cm.)
OBSERVATIONS	lower than 320, quieter than 312	lower than 320, metallic sound, traveled fast was relatively quiet, echoey	lower than 320, LOUD
320	oak table (0.65 grams per cubic cm.)	locker	white board (0.57 grams per cubic cm.)
OBSERVATIONS	higher than 512, louder than 512	higher than 512, metallic sound, travelled faster than table	higher than 512, quieter, a bit more intense

Conclusion:

Our guiding question was how the density of a material affects the properties of sound travelling from a tuning fork. From the data that we gathered, I can tell a couple of different things. It seems that in most cases, other than the metal, the denser the object the more difficult it is for the waves to travel through as fast. With steel, though, it’s a different story. Because it has a lot more elasticity, the sound waves travel faster through the steel than they did for either of the other objects, regardless of the density. My hypothesis was mostly correct, although I didn’t mention steel or anything of that sort.

Further Inquiry:

I think that any major causes of error were because of the way we listened to the tuning forks. We could have probably been more accurate and tried to measure a different factor such as the intensity of the sound, or even the loudness. It would have been cool if we had done a couple of different tests to figure out not only about the density, but also all of the other factors of the medium and the wave.