Wave cancellation
Moderator: scott
re: Wave cancellation
So two cancelling sound waves convert their energy into localized heating of the medium where the two waves collide? Through friction?
The example of two speakers facing each other that output identical sound waves that are 180 degrees out of phase will cause heating of the air at the midpoint between the speaker cones then. A kind of acoustical heater.
So the energy chain begins with the energy from the Sun. This energy is converted to electricity by any number of means. The electricity is used to produce the magnetic field to drive the speakers, which drives the air, where that energy is dissipated as heat absorbed by the air. And there is no known way to reverse that last step? To take the ambient heat from matter, allowing it to cool by releasing that heat energy into two wave forms that are 180 degrees out of phase that can then be used to do work, right? I mean, that would be like harnessing the heat of frictional losses to do work.
On a related thought, this implies that a perfectly elastic collision would produce no sound?
The example of two speakers facing each other that output identical sound waves that are 180 degrees out of phase will cause heating of the air at the midpoint between the speaker cones then. A kind of acoustical heater.
So the energy chain begins with the energy from the Sun. This energy is converted to electricity by any number of means. The electricity is used to produce the magnetic field to drive the speakers, which drives the air, where that energy is dissipated as heat absorbed by the air. And there is no known way to reverse that last step? To take the ambient heat from matter, allowing it to cool by releasing that heat energy into two wave forms that are 180 degrees out of phase that can then be used to do work, right? I mean, that would be like harnessing the heat of frictional losses to do work.
On a related thought, this implies that a perfectly elastic collision would produce no sound?