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justlikereddit a day ago

My subwoofer is approximate cubic with 30 cm to a side.

But the wavelength of sound it makes at 20Hz is approximately 17 meter.

Wavelength is merely a human conceptualization. If we reconceptialize it as peak-to-peak interval it suddenly stops being length and becomes a time instead

ttoinou a day ago | parent [-]

The sound pressure wave does take 17 meters in the air to make a full cycle, no ? It’s real, same for the photon

MaxikCZ a day ago | parent [-]

It's not about measuring peak to peak in distance, it's about measuring how long it takes for one spot to encounter second peak after first. The fact that the first peak traveled some distance is irrelevant, as its entirely dependent on propagation speed, which doesn't affect the frequency, only vawelenght.

18 hours ago | parent | next [-]
[deleted]
ttoinou a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Would you then say that the wavelength is meaningful for the sound example as its properties are really of a wave propagating, and meaningless for the light as the wave analogy isn’t a full description of the light phenomenon behavior ?

MaxikCZ 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I have pretty strong intuition for how "sound looks". I know how to imagine a wavelength of sound, how the medium works over time etc. I don't have the same intuition about light, as the sound analogy of a wavelength (distance between 2 peaks) clash with the part of photon that behaves like a particle.

From that standpoint I can confidently say that wavelength is meaningful for the sound example, but not so much for light. Someone more knowledgeable than me would probably offer better insight.