The IGCSE class is carrying out an experiment to determine the speed of sound in air. The diagram indicates the method used. The experiment is conducted outside the school building.

Student A strikes a drum once as loudly as possible. Student B stands some distance away from student A and starts a stopwatch when she sees the drum being hit. She stops the stopwatch when she hears the sound. She records the time interval t in the table (below). The experiment is repeated several times. She calculates the speed of sound v and enters the values in the table.

t/s	v/(m/s)
0.87	344.83
0.92	326.09
0.84	357.14
0.83	361.45
0.86	338.84

a. Suggest a suitable distance d for students to use when carrying out this experiment.

b. Suggest a suitable instrument for measuring the distanced.

c. Calculate the average value υ_av, for the speed of sound from the results in the table. Show your working.

d. The student has recorded the values for the speed of sound v to five significant figures. State whether this is a suitable number of significant figures for the speed of sound in air in this experiment. Give a reason for your answer.

Transcribed Image Text:

student - A student - B stopwatch. drum d (not to scale) ID