Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Listening to some music, I observe that most of the drumbeat sounds 
> appear to be in the region below 200 Hz.

> Wolfram Alpha tells me [EVENTUALLY!] that a 200 Hz sound has a 
> wavelength of about 170 cm.

> Question: Since the doorway to be bedroom is less than 170 cm wide, does 
> that mean those waves can't leave the room? Or does the fact that it's 
> more than 170 cm tall negate that?

  I think you have a misconception of what wavelength means. The misconception
probably comes from those 2D drawings of wave functions.

  A sound wave (nor an electromagnetic wave for that matter) is not some
kind of sine wave which goes through the air. The sine wave function you
see drawn on a picture is just the representation of the function which
tells which direction the wave is "pushing" at certain point (and how
"strongly" it's "pusing"). The sine wave drawing is just a graph which maps
time to amplitude ("strength" of the sound wave), it's in no way meant to
represent the *physical* appearance of a sound wave.

  A sound wave is simply a phenomenon of air molecules pushing (and pulling)
adjacent air molecules. The phenomenon traverses through air. The maximum
strength at which this "pushing" happens is the amplitude of the wave, and
the rate of change between "pushing" and "pulling" is the frequency. The
distance between two "pushing" peaks is the wavelength.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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