Acoustic

Acoustics

Acoustics is a branch of physics and is the study of sound (mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids). A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician. The application of acoustics in technology is called acoustical engineering. There is often much overlap and interaction between the interests of acousticians and acoustical engineers.


The word acoustic is derived from the ancient Greek word ακουστός, meaning able to be heard. (Woodhouse, 1910, 392)


...[A]coustics is characterized by its reliance on combinations of physical principles drawn from other sources; and that the primary task of modern physical acoustics is to effect a fusion of the principles normally adhering to other sciences into a coherent basis for understanding, measuring, controlling, and using the whole gamut of vibrational phenomena in any material.
Origins in Acoustics. F.V. Hunt. Yale University Press, 1978


Acoustics is the science concerned with the production, control, transmission, reception, and effects of sound. Its origins began with the study of mechanical vibrations and the radiation of these vibrations through mechanical waves, and still continues today. Research was done to look into the many aspects of the fundamental physical processes involved in waves and sound and into possible applications of these processes in modern life. The study of sound waves also lead to physical principles that can be applied to the study of all waves.


The study of acoustics has been fundamental to many developments in the arts. Some of these, especially in the area of musical scales and instruments, were only explained theoretically by scientists after long years of long experimentation by artists. For example, much of what is now known about architectural acoustics was actually learned by trial and error over centuries of experience and was only recently formalized into a science.


Other applications of acoustic technology are in the study of geologic, atmospheric, and underwater phenomena. Psychoacoustics, the study of the physical effects of sound on biological systems, has been of interest since Pythagoras first heard the sounds of vibrating strings and of hammers hitting anvils in the 6th century BC, but the application of modern ultrasonic technology has only recently provided some of the most exciting developments in medicine. The ear itself is another biological instrument dedicated to receiving certain wave vibrations and interpreting them as sound.