Adjacent compression and rarefaction regions can short-circuit and kill radiated sound

Evidence

Surfaces have modes that, like a string, undulate sinusoidally in time. As a surface undulates in such a mode, it deforms outward at one place, and simultaneously inward at an adjacent location. This means adjacent rarefactions and compressions will short-circuit, if these opposing regions are closer together than a half-wavelength of the sound at the frequency of the surface waves. In the short-circuit mechanism, air flows from high pressure to low pressure before the sound has a chance to radiate away. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 669

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the acoustic short-circuiting concept in loudspeaker design; pairs with the two-piston phase arguments above.

Related

• Adjacent surface compressions and rarefactions can cancel sound before it radiates. (similarity 0.92)
• Adjacent opposite-phase regions on a vibrating surface cancel their radiated sound (similarity 0.86)
• Oppositely phased paired resonators short-circuit radiation and raise Q to 70 (similarity 0.81)
• A baffle prevents acoustic short-circuiting when it makes air travel farther (similarity 0.81)
• Superposed sounds cancel or amplify locally without changing each other (similarity 0.81)
• Waves transitioning from bounded to unbounded space create interfering reflections (similarity 0.81)
• Radiated sound depends on source area and air-displacement pattern, not just amplitude (similarity 0.81)
• Adjacent boundaries alter radiated sound power via acoustical radiation resistance (similarity 0.81)
• Edge diffraction sources can be canceled by out-of-phase speakers (similarity 0.80)
• Sound diffracts strongly only when wavelengths exceed opening size (similarity 0.80)
• Sound bends around obstacles because pressure changes cannot end abruptly at shadow boundaries (similarity 0.79)
• Sound diffraction arises from gradual pressure decay, not abrupt wave cutoff (similarity 0.79)
• Phase-shifted air motion through f-holes reinforces sound radiation at high frequencies (similarity 0.79)
• Supersonic bending waves radiate sound in strongly favored directions (similarity 0.79)
• Phase relationships among source components shape far-field radiation directionality (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Adjacent opposite-phase regions on a vibrating surface cancel their radiated sound #contradicts (0.75) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 676
• Sound waves are longitudinal waves of alternating compression and rarefaction #expands (0.72) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 27
• Oppositely phased resonators short-circuit each other and prolong sound decay. #epitomizes (0.72) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1235
• Sound is alternating pressure condensations and rarefactions #expands (0.72) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 46
• Proximity to a resonator suppresses, rather than amplifies, monopole sound sources #expands (0.70) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1889