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by Rebecca Woodbury Med (Author)
Sound starts with atoms and molecules. Atoms are the tiny building blocks of all matter, and they link together to form molecules. Atoms and molecules are always wiggling. Clapping your hands pushes molecules in the air around your hands to move, making them wiggle faster, and this slight back and forth wiggling movement is passed along from molecule to molecule. How much the molecules wiggle can be tracked by recording energy changes. Energy is defined as a measure of the amount of change that happens, including a change in location (position), speed, or shape.
Sound is a longitudinal wave in which the molecules move slightly from side to side. The more the molecules wiggle, the louder the sound. The ear has a tympanic membrane that picks up the motion of the molecules in a sound wave traveling through air. In fact, because a sound wave is made of wiggling atoms and molecules, it can travel through any material made of molecules. The speed of a sound wave in a material depends on how tightly packed the molecules are. Therefore, sound will travel faster through water and metals than it will through air as the wiggles are passed from molecule to molecule.
A pronunciation guide for scientific terms is included.24 pages with colorful photographs and illustrations. Reading Level 1-3, Interest Level 2-5.
