48 - On the Amplitude of Sound-Waves

Summary

[Proceedings of the Royal Society, xxvi. pp. 248–249, 1877.]

Scarcely any attempts have been made, so far as I am aware, to measure the actual amplitude of sound-bearing waves, and indeed the problem is one of considerable difficulty. Even if the measurement could be effected, the result would have reference only to the waves actually experimented upon, and would be of no great value in the absence of some means of defining the intensity of the corresponding sound. It is bad policy, however, to despise quantitative estimates because they are rough; and in the present case it is for many reasons desirable to have a general idea of the magnitudes of the quantities with which we have to deal. Now it is evident that a superior limit to the amplitude of waves giving an audible sound may be arrived at from a knowledge of the energy which must be expended in a given time in order to generate them, and of the extent of surface over which the waves so generated are spread at the time of hearing. An estimate founded on these data will necessarily be too high, both because sound-waves must suffer some dissipation in their progress, and also because a part, and in some cases a large part, of the energy expended never takes the form of sound-waves at all.

The source of sound in my experiment was a whistle, mounted on a Wolf's bottle, in connexion with which was a syphon manometer for the purpose of measuring the pressure of wind.