Speed+of+Sound+Old

The frequency, the length of the rod  and the speed of sound  in the material the rod is made of are related. If I hold my hand at the ½ way point, this relationship is: In the applet, we calculate the frequency of the sound produced by using the fact that the speed of sound in aluminium is:. In real life, we can calculate this speed by vibrating the rod to produce the sound, measuring its frequency [1/s] and then multiplying by [m].

To get the rod to produce the different frequency, I must hold the rod at the first "node" position for this to work. If the number of nodes is n, then the first "node" position is: (measured from end) Of course, the speed of sound doesn't change, so the above relationship including nodes n≥1 is:
 * Adding nodes:** Adding nodes changes the frequency.