Schlieren imaging of sound at the turn of the century
The mystery of sound fields lies largely in that, despite the complex presence of diffraction effects, at a human scale, they cannot be seen. We sample an acoustic field two points at a time, and mapping it completely, even in two dimensions, requires a constant field and a lot of patience. Vision a...
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Veröffentlicht in: | The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2004-10, Vol.116 (4_Supplement), p.2617-2617 |
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Hauptverfasser: | , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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Zusammenfassung: | The mystery of sound fields lies largely in that, despite the complex presence of diffraction effects, at a human scale, they cannot be seen. We sample an acoustic field two points at a time, and mapping it completely, even in two dimensions, requires a constant field and a lot of patience. Vision allows capturing two-dimensional images, and even mental three-dimensional images. Yet light can only be seen when it is interfered with, and scattered into, our retinas. Like sound, we must destroy its field in order to sense it. Quite possibly, the lack of sensory perception of acoustic field maps is responsible for our slowness in understanding the nature of waves. The limitations of point-to-point mapping of fields leads many to take a few samples and then work directly with mathematical models. Schlieren is an ancient yet rediscovered, fascinating technique to generate instantaneous maps of acoustic fields based on the interaction of light and sound. Its value as a guide to intuitively connect with the underlying physics is undeniable, and new developments have turned it into a quantitative method, even where no other mapping methods are possible. |
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ISSN: | 0001-4966 1520-8524 |
DOI: | 10.1121/1.4785435 |