Why and How in Physics?

1. How do acoustic boards work? Why does silence

prevail at a snowy night?
Ans.: Have you noticed that many concert halls,
conference rooms and classrooms have porous boards
on their walls? These walls are made of acoustic boards,
which are used to absorb noise. After sound waves
propagate into the holes of the board, they will hit
the spongy inner wall and lose energy. The waves
will be reflected many times and most of the energy
is dissipated as heat. The acoustic board has absorbed
the sound.
In snowy days, everywhere is covered by a thick layer
of snow. Snow does not have rigid structure like ice.
Instead, snowflakes are packed loosely leaving many
voids. The structure is just like acoustic boards. The
voids absorb sound waves, especially those with
frequencies greater than 600Hz. Therefore silence
prevails at a snowy night.

to drive the clock hands; this is the basic mechanism

of a "quartz watch". This is of course a very brief
description, and in practice the mechanism is much
more complicated.
Interestingly, we can deduce the mechanism of a watch
from the mode of motion of its second hand. If the
second hand on a watch flops second by second, it
should be a quartz watch. On the contrary, the second
hand of a mechanical watch moves continuously, and
such a watch may probably have a spring! Compared
with a mechanical watch, a quartz watch is less affected
by gravity and hence it is usually more accurate.
Moreover, the quartz crystal is chemically very stable,
its composition would not be easily altered by the
environment, thus it has a wide range of applications
in industry. Recently someone has even foretold that
the famous "Silicon Valley" would have its name
changed to "Quartz Valley" sooner or later!

2. How does a quartz watch operate? How can we

distinguish between a quartz watch and a mechanical
watch?
Ans.: Just as its name implies, a quartz watch must
contain quartz. Quartz is made up of the two elements
silicon and oxygen, its chemical composition is silicon
dioxide, which is just the chemical composition of
ordinary sand that we often see. But there is a
fundamental difference between quartz and sand: quartz
is a crystal in which atoms are orderly arranged. In
contrast, atoms in sand are not tidily arranged and
sand contains many impurities. Quartz crystal is a
piezoelectric material , thus its surface will carry a
voltage when it is under pressure. On the other hand,
if a voltage is applied to its surface, the crystal will
be slightly deformed. Imagine what happens when
an alternating current is applied to a piezoelectric
material: since the direction of the voltage is changing,
the shape of the material will also change periodically,
in other words, the material vibrates! Moreover, the
vibration is very stable and is almost independent of
temperature. By using electronic techniques, the
vibration signals due to the voltage can be amplified

3. Why does the egg float when water is running

down?
Ans.: Try to put an egg in a glass that is filled up with
water. It should sink to the bottom of the glass if it
is not rotten. If you turn on a water tap at this time
and allow water runs into the glass till it overflows,
the egg will float. This experiment could be easily
repeated. So why does the egg float when water was
running down on it? This phenomenon can be explained
P + V 2
by the Bernoulli equation ( 2 + gh = constant). When
water overflows, the speed of flow near the water
surface will be higher than that under it. According
to the Bernoulli equation, the pressure will be smaller
when the speed of flow is larger. Therefore, the pressure
decreases more near the water surface, and the pressure
at and under the water surface will differ to a larger
extent. Hence the egg will be pushed up by an increased
upward force. This is why the egg will float!

4. Why can a blackboard reflect light? Why is it so

difficult to read the characters written on a blackboard
which reflects light?

Ans.: Blackboard can reflect light is not because the

paint is not "black" enough. Though a black object
will absorb most of the light that shines upon it, there
is still a small portion of light to be reflected. Especially
a blackboard with a very smooth surface, the big
smooth surface can reflect much of the incoming light
to the same direction. Although a white character on
the blackboard can reflect more light, the rough surface
of it will scatter the light away in all different directions.
Since the reflective area of a character is so small, the
light from it is then overwhelmed by the light reflected
from the blackboard and therefore cannot be seen
clearly. If a rough blackboard is used instead, the
reflected light will be scattered and the reflectivity of
the blackboard will then be decreased
5. Why do sound waves transmit farther at night?
Is it because it is quieter at night?
If you go to the beach on vacation, during the night,

you will discover that voice of people far away can

be heard clearly. You may wonder, it is because it is
quieter at night than in the daytime. Therefore it is
easy to hear the sound far away. However, it is only
one of the reasons. Actually, sound transmits farther
at night may be related to refraction of sound waves!
First, sound is the vibration of air, and it is a kind of
wave motion. The propagation of sound wave is faster
in hot air and slower in cold air. Therefore regions of
air at different temperatures have different refractive
indices, just like media with different optical densities.
When sound wave propagates in air whose temperature
changes with altitude, refraction of air happens. Sound
will move towards areas with lower temperatures. In
the daytime, when the sun shines the earth, the air
near the earth surface is hotter than the air above.
Sound waves will be refracted to the sky. On the contrary,
in the nighttime, the air near the surface is cooler and
sound waves are refracted to the earth surface.