Vibrations and Waves for the
Health Science Major
Mark W. Plano Clark
Doane College
February 2002
Supported in part by NSF DUE0088712
Overview
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Develop an introductory physics curriculum
Who: Health science majors
Why: Students see little relevance to goals
What:
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Intrinsically motivating activities
interactive engagement
Problem solving strategy
Multimedia
Mathematical modeling
Speech and Hearing
• Base the physics on the human body - the
hook!
• Physics topics in this module: vibrations,
waves, standing waves, Hooke’s Law,
pressure, fluid flow, Bernoulli's principle
• Emphasize mathematical modeling,
problem solving, multimedia
Motivation - The hook!
• Thanks Chris Wentworth and his nose!
Exploration
• How does the human vocal system produce
such amazing sounds?
– Feel your throat while making the following
sounds
• make soft sounds, loud sounds
• sing a high note, a low note
• say aaah, say eeeee
Invention
• Study the properties of a simple
larynx/pharynx model
• Make a loud sound, a soft sound
• Produce a high pitched sound, a low one
• Produce the same pitch with different levels
of loudness
• What’s happening…?
More Multimedia
• High speed digital video (DV) of vocal
folds model
• Follow one point along the edge of the
“vocal folds” - vibration
• Can we produce a simple mathematical
model that approximates the motion?
Vibrations - The Ruler
Mathematical Model - SHO?
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Repetitive motion
Collect data using VideoPoint - more later!
Model the data in Excel
Introduce the simple harmonic oscillator
– x(t) = Asin(2ft)
• How well did we do?
Vibrating Ruler
Amplitude (m)
0.1
0.05
0
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
-0.05
-0.1
Time (s)
0.25
0.3
0.35
Conclusions - so far….
• Students definitely enjoyed manipulating
the larynx model!
• Many experiments are standard physics
experiments but more personal
• Investigators (well some) enjoyed
discovering human applications