The hills are alive with … the sound of SCIENCE It’s true, those good vibrations are all around us but the question is: do YOU know your hertz from your harpsichord? Try our new quiz and find out whether you’re a major or a minor musical megastar! The first three correct answers out of the hat on 21st December will win a fantastic MP3 player. So what are you waiting for? GOOD LUCK! >>>
	01 Why does sound travel faster through metal than through air? The atoms in metal are closer together increasing the speed that the vibrations can travel through it. Metal conducts electricity which helps the sound move along. Metal is rigid so the sound can travel easily in straight lines. 02 Is it quiet in space? Yes, sound needs to travel through something - because space is a vacuum sound can't move through it. Yes at any single point it is generally extremely quiet, because distances between heavenly bodies and spacecraft are so vast. No, it’s very noisy because the Sun and other stars are constantly blasting out material in huge explosions - the atmosphere protects us from this noise. 03 Recent research has shown that if you listen to some classical music it may… Improve your balance. Improve your spatial awareness. Make your hair and nails grow more quickly. 04 Why are women's voices higher than men's? By listening to their mothers, women learn to speak with a higher voice. Women have smaller lungs so less air is blown passed the vocal chords when speaking. Women have shorter vocal chords and the length of the chords affects the pitch of the sound. 05 A minidisk has about one fifth of the memory of a CD, but they both play about 75 minutes of music. How can this happen? The information on the minidisk is compressed and some information is lost. The information for the bass of the music is lost when recording onto minidisk. The information stored on minidisk is in a magnetic form and this takes up less space. 06 A scratched CD will still play while a vinyl record won't. Why is this? A CD player contains an error-correction system which can easily spot an analogue scratch when compared with the digital music. Because of the frequency of the laser light, it can't see the scratch. The information on a CD is held in strips, if the scratch doesn't cross the strip it won't affect the music. 07 Which is the loudest (188 decibels) and farthest-travelling (850 km) sound in the animal world? Elephant trumpet Howler monkey howl Whale song 08 Which of the following musical sounds has been known to shatter a wine glass? An opera singer hitting a top note Plucking the string of a double bass Blowing a tuba 09 The noise level of an everyday conversation is around 60db and your hearing can be damaged by sounds of around 90db. But what is the average decibel level at a rock concert? 80 decibels 120 decibels 400 decibels 10 A singer is giving an open-air concert and a family sitting in their garden 1700m away can hear the concert. The singer starts singing a song, how long after this do the family first hear her? (Given that, speed = distance\time and the speed of sound through air = 340m/s) 3 seconds 5 seconds 15 seconds 11 The frequency, or pitch, of a sound is measured in Hertz (Hz). What is the smallest difference in frequency between two separate sounds that a person is capable of detecting? 2 Hz 4 Hz 16Hz Back to Quizzes & Competitions