Sound is a mechanical wave requiring a medium and a vibrating source

Evidence

At a physical level, sound is simply a mechanical disturbance of the medium, which may be air, or a solid, liquid or other gas. However, such a simplistic description is not very useful, as it provides no information about the way this disturbance travels or any of its characteristics other than the requirement for a medium in order for it to propagate. What is required is a more accurate description that can be used to make predictions of the behavior of sound in a variety of contexts. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 49 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• Sound requires a physical medium and is fundamentally a mechanical disturbance (similarity 0.92)
• Sound requires a physical medium to propagate through (similarity 0.91)
• Most sound arises from vibrating mechanical objects in a medium (similarity 0.89)
• Excitation in an elastic medium generates waves from the source (similarity 0.86)
• A sound signal is the registered time-varying vibration of a medium (similarity 0.84)
• Sound propagation depends on interactions with objects and the medium (similarity 0.84)
• Sound pressure is the small pressure deviation caused by a sound wave (similarity 0.83)
• Sound denotes both a physical wave and the subjective percept it evokes (similarity 0.83)
• Sound waves are longitudinal waves of alternating compression and rarefaction (similarity 0.82)
• A sound wave’s pressure component arises from the force driving molecular displacement. (similarity 0.82)
• Compressions and rarefactions define sound as a longitudinal wave through a medium. (similarity 0.82)
• A medium’s density and elasticity relate sound pressure to particle velocity. (similarity 0.82)
• Aristotle described sound as a spread of air impulses (similarity 0.82)
• Vibration generates acoustic waves while sound radiation drains vibration energy (similarity 0.81)
• Medium-specific sound transmission across solids, liquids, and gas yields distinct sonic ecologies. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Sound requires a physical medium and is fundamentally a mechanical disturbance #corroborates (0.98) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 49
• Excitation in an elastic medium generates waves from the source #expands (0.85)
• Sound waves are longitudinal waves of alternating compression and rarefaction #expands (0.82)
• Sound propagation depends on interactions with objects and the medium #expands (0.80)
• Sound waves have an inherent velocity component tied to molecular displacement. #expands (0.75)
• Small vibrating objects radiate weak sound because source size is far under one wavelength #expands (0.72)