Fingerprinting biomolecules with the help of sound

A team of researchers from the Institute for Optoelectronic Systems and Microtechnology at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) has designed a biosensor capable of identifying proteins and peptides in quantities as low ...

A magnetically actuated acoustic metamaterial

Space coiling acoustic metamaterials are static and require manual reconfiguration for sound-field modulation. In a new report published in Communications Materials, Christabel Choi, and a team of scientists in computer science ...

Teaching physics from the din of flying discs

Disc golf is booming, with record numbers of players turning up each year to partake in the disc-throwing sport. It is also whizzing and whistling. In fact, the sound a disc makes while soaring through the air toward its ...

page 1 from 40

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics can be seen in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries.

Hearing is one of the most crucial means of survival in the animal world, and speech is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human development and culture. So it is no surprise that the science of acoustics spreads across so many facets of our society—music, medicine, architecture, industrial production, warfare and more. Art, craft, science and technology have provoked one another to advance the whole, as in many other fields of knowledge. Lindsay's 'Wheel of Acoustics' is a well accepted overview of the various fields in acoustics.

The word "acoustic" is derived from the Greek word ἀκουστικός (akoustikos), meaning "of or for hearing, ready to hear" and that from ἀκουστός (akoustos), "heard, audible", which in turn derives from the verb ἀκούω (akouo), "I hear".

The Latin synonym is "sonic", after which the term sonics used to be a synonym for acoustics and later a branch of acoustics. Frequencies above and below the audible range are called "ultrasonic" and "infrasonic", respectively.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA