Graphic relation between amplitude and sound intensity level
This provides a simple experimental demonstration for introductory physics education, but it is incremental as it verifies a well-known theoretical concept.
The authors tackled the problem of empirically demonstrating the theoretical relationship that sound intensity is proportional to the square of amplitude, using an audio signal generator and oscilloscope to create a plot that shows excellent agreement with expected results.
We present a simple experiment that allows us to demonstrate graphically that the intensity of sound waves is proportional to the square of their amplitude, a result that is theoretically analysed in any introductory wave course but rarely demonstrated empirically. To achieve our goal, we use an audio signal generator that, when connected to a loudspeaker, produces sine waves that can be easily observed and measured using an oscilloscope. The measurements made with these instruments allow us to create a plot of amplitude versus sound intensity level, which verifies the mathematical relationship between amplitude and intensity mentioned above. Among the experimental errors, the plot obtained is in excellent agreement with what is theoretically expected.