Diane de Kerckhove - Teaching
Courses taught in Winter 2008:
THE PHYSICS OF MUSIC: MUSC*1090/PHYS*1810 (Winter 2008)
FINAL EXAM: Friday, April 18, 7 -9pm, Crop Sciences 116/117
Exam period office fours:
April 15, 16, 17: 2pm to 3.30pm, April 18: 10.30am to 12 noon
For other times, please e-mail me to make an appointment
Exam material: Chapters 1 - 8, 10 (first section).UPDATE: Since we didn't do as many practice questions of this kind, I've decided to not set questions 5 to 8 of Chapter 10 for the exam, so only material from Chap. 10 questions 1-4 will be examinable.
Exam structure:
PART 1: 25 multiple choice/fill in the blanks questions
PART 2: 6 to 8 short questions
PART 1: 1 or 2 multi-part problems
The exam will be very similar to mid-terms and quizzes. Go over past homework, mid-term and quiz questions, make sure you can answer these. Solutions to both mid-terms and the later homework questions are posted on the board apposite the 1080 labs on the 3rd floor of MacNaughton.
Supplementary suggested problems for extra practice:
Chapter 5: #8, 9, 12 (first part only), 17
Chapter 6: #16
Chapter 7: #12 (if E1=41.20 Hz, calculate all other intervals, then compare your answers with Fig. E-1 at the back of the book); #18: Use Fig. E-1 again to look up
the frequencies, then calculate
Chapter 10: #1-8 (already assigned, this is just a reminder!)
DOCUMENTS FOR DOWNLOAD
Course outline
Formula sheet FINAL EXAM FORMULA SHEET
Guitar String Tensions
MICROPHONES, SPEAKERS, TAPE RECORDERS, RECORD PLAYERS, GUITAR PICK-UPS
INTERESTING WEBSITES
Building sound waves Try generating odd or even wave shapes such as square waves, sawtooth patterns, triangular waves etc. This way, you can synthesise waves and get a sense for the sound of a 'harsher' sound (triangular= many higher order frequencies) or 'purer' sound (e.g. pure sine with only fundamental). Note: you have to press 'play' to hear the wave pattern. You may want to turn your volume down before trying this, it is rather loud!
Frequency AnalyzerIf you have a microphone for your computer (and a soundcard) you might want to try using "Frequency Analyzer". This is Freeware which plots the frequency spectrum along the vertical axis, with time on the horizontal axis. Try sliding down a note to see how the frequency spectrum changes with time. You can use either the microphone or a .WAV file as an input.
Acoustics and waves demo page A page with a few fun demos and concepts in acoustics.
Other courses taught:
Waves and Optics PHYS*3220 (Winter 2007)
Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences PHYS*1070 (Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008)
Contemporary Astronomy PHYS*1600*DE (Summer 2006)
General Astronomy PHYS*2600 (Fall 2005, Fall 2007)