Interference - Real-life applications

Mechanical Waves

One of the easiest ways to observe interference is by watching the behavior of mechanical waves. Drop a stone into a still pond, and watch how its waves ripple: this, as with most waveforms in water, is an example of a surface wave, or one that displays aspects of both transverse and longitudinal wave motion. Thus, as the concentric circles of a longitudinal wave ripple outward in one dimension, there are also transverse movements along a plane perpendicular to that of the longitudinal wave.

While the first wave is still rippling across the water, drop another stone close to the place where the first one was dropped. Now, there are two surface waves, crests and troughs colliding and interfering. In some places, they will interfere constructively, producing a wave—or rather, a portion of a wave—that is greater in amplitude than either of the original waves. At other places, there will be destructive interference, with some waves so perfectly out of phase that at one instant in time, a given spot on the water may look as though it had not been disturbed at all.

One of the interesting aspects of this interaction is the lack of uniformity in the instances of interference. As suggested in the preceding paragraph, it is usually not entire waves, but merely portions of waves, that interfere constructively or destructively. The result is that a seemingly simple event—dropping two stones into a still pond—produces a dazzling array of colliding circles, broken by outwardly undisturbed areas of destructive interference.

A similar phenomenon, though manifested by the interaction of geometric lines rather than concentric circles, occurs when two power boats pass each other on a lake. The first boat chops up the water, creating a wake that widens behind it: when seen from the air, the boat appears to be at the apex of a triangle whose sides are formed by rippling eddies of water.

Now, another boat passes through the wake of the first, only it is going in the opposite direction and producing its own ever-widening wake as it goes. As the waves from the two boats meet, some are in phase, but, more often than not, they are only partly in phase, or they possess differing wavelengths. Therefore, the waves at least partially cancel out one another in places, and in other places, reinforce one another. The result is an interesting patchwork of patterns when seen from the air.

Sound Waves

IN TUNE AND OUT OF TUNE.

The relationships between musical notes can be intriguing, and though tastes in music vary, most people know when music is harmonious and when it is discordant. As discussed in the essay on frequency, this harmony or discord can be equated to the mathematical relationships between the frequencies of specific notes: the lower the numbers involved in the ratio, the more pleasing the sound.

The ratio between the frequency of middle C and that of its first harmonic—that is, the C note exactly one octave above it—is a nice, clean 1:2. If one were to play a song in the key of C-which, on a piano, involves only the "white notes" C-D-E-F-G-A-B—everything should be perfectly harmonious and (presumably) pleasant to the ear. But what if the piano itself is out of tune? Or what if one key is out of tune with the others?

The result, for anyone who is not tone-deaf, produces an overall impression of unpleasantness: it might be a bit hard to identify the source of this discomfort, but it is clear that something is amiss. At best, an out-of-tune piano might sound like something that belonged in a saloon from an old Western; at worst, the sound of notes that do not match their accustomed frequencies can be positively grating.

HOW A TUNING FORK WORKS.

To rectify the situation, a professional piano tuner uses a tuning fork, an instrument that produces a single frequency—say, 264 Hz, which is the frequency of middle C. The piano tuner strikes the tuning fork, and at the same time strikes the appropriate key on the piano. If their frequencies are perfectly aligned, so is the sound of both; but, more likely, there will be interference, both constructive and destructive.

As time passes—measured in seconds or even fractions of seconds—the sounds of the tuning fork and that of the piano key will alternate between constructive and destructive interference. In the case of constructive interference, their combined sound will become louder than the individual sounds of either; and when the interference is destructive, the sound of both together will be softer than that produced by either the fork or the key.

The piano tuner listens for these fluctuations of loudness, which are called beats, and adjusts the tension in the appropriate piano string until the beats disappear completely. As long as there are beats, the piano string and the tuning fork will produce together a frequency that is the average of the two: if, for instance, the out-of-tune middle C string vibrates at 262 Hz, the resulting frequency will be 263 Hz.

DIFFERENCE TONES.

Another interesting aspect of the interaction between notes is the "difference tone," created by discord, which the human ear perceives as a third tone. Though E and F are both part of the C scale, when struck together, the sound is highly discordant. In light of what was said above about ratios between frequencies, this dissonance is fitting, as the ratio here involves relatively high numbers—15:16.

When two notes are struck together, they produce a combination tone, perceived by the human ear as a third tone. If the two notes are harmonious, the "third tone" is known as a summation tone, and is equal to the combined frequencies of the two notes. But if the combination is dissonant, as in the case of E and F, the third tone is known as a difference tone, equal to the difference in frequencies. Since an E note vibrates at 330 Hz, and an F note at 352 Hz, the resulting difference tone is equal to 22 Hz.

DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE IN SOUND WAVES.

When music is played in a concert hall, it reverberates off the walls of the auditorium. Assuming the place is well designed acoustically, these bouncing sound waves will interfere constructively, and the auditorium comes alive with the sound of the music. In other situations, however, the sound waves may interfere destructively, and the result is a certain muffled deadness to the sound.

Clearly, in a music hall, destructive interference is a problem; but there are cases in which it can be a benefit—situations, that is, in which the purpose, indeed, is to deaden the sound. One example is an automobile muffler. A car's exhaust system makes a great deal of noise, and, thus, if a car does not have a proper muffler, it creates a great deal of noise pollution. A muffler counteracts this by producing a sound wave out of phase with that of the exhaust system; hence, it cancels out most of the noise.

Destructive interference can also be used to reduce sound in a room. Once again, a machine is calibrated to generate sound waves that are perfectly out of phase with the offending noise—say, the hum of another machine. The resulting effect conveys the impression that there is no noise in the room, though, in fact, the sound waves are still there; they have merely canceled each other out.

Electromagnetic Waves

In 1801, English physicist Thomas Young (1773-1829), known for Young's modulus of elasticity became the first scientist to identify interference in light waves. Challenging the corpuscular theory of light put forward by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Young set up an experiment in which a beam of light passed through two closely spaced pinholes onto a screen. If light was truly made of particles, he said, the beams would project two distinct points onto the screen. Instead, what he saw was a pattern of interference.

In fact, Newton was partly right, but Young's discovery helped advance the view of light as a wave, which is also partly right. (According to quantum theory, developed in the twentieth century, light behaves both as waves and as particles.) The interference in the visible spectrum that Young witnessed was manifested as bright and dark bands. These bands are known as fringes—variations in intensity not unlike the beats created in some instances of sound interference, described above.

OILY FILMS AND RAINBOWS.

Many people have noticed the strangely beautiful pattern of colors generated when light interacts with an oily substance, as when light reflected on a soap bubble produces an astonishing array of shades. Sometimes, this can happen in situations not otherwise aesthetically pleasing: an oily film in a parking lot, left there by a car's leaky crankcase, can produce a rainbow of colors if the sunlight hits it just right.

This happens because the thickness of the oil causes a delay in reflection of the light beam. Some colors pass through the film, becoming delayed and, thus, getting out of phase with the reflected light on the surface of the film. These shades destructively interfere to such an extent that the waves are cancelled, rendering them invisible. Other colors reflect off the surface so that they are perfectly in phase with the light traveling through the film, and appear as an attractive swirl of color on the surface of the oil.

The phenomenon of light-wave interference with oily or filmy surfaces has the effect of filtering light, and, thus, has a number of applications in areas relating to optics: sunglasses, lenses for binoculars or cameras, and even visors for astronauts. In each case, unfiltered light could be harmful or, at least, inconvenient for the user, and the destructive interference eliminates certain colors and unwanted reflections.

RADIO WAVES.

Visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, whose broad range of wave phenomena are, likewise, subject to constructive or destructive interference. After visible light, the area of the spectrum most people experience during an average day is the realm of relatively low-frequency, long-wave length radio waves and microwaves, the latter including television broadcast signals.

People who rely on an antenna for their TV reception are likely to experience interference at some point. However, an increasing number of Americans use either cable or satellite systems to pick up TV programs. These are much less susceptible to interference, due to the technology of coaxial cable, on the one hand, and digital compression, on the other. Thus, interference in television reception is a gradually diminishing problem.

Interference among radio signals continues to be a challenge, since most people still hear the radio via old-fashioned means rather than through new technology, such as the Internet. A number of interference problems are created by activity on the Sun, which has an enormously powerful electromagnetic field. Obviously, such interference is beyond the control of most radio listeners, but according to a Web page set up by WHKY Radio in Hickory, North Carolina, there are a number of things listeners can do to decrease interference in their own households.

Among the suggestions offered at the WHKY Web site is this: "Nine times out of ten, if your radio is near a computer, it will interfere with your radio. Computers send out all kinds of signals that your radio 'thinks' is a real radio signal. Try to locate your radio away from computers… especially the monitor." The Web site listed a number of other household appliances, as well as outside phenomena such as power lines or thunderstorms, that can contribute to radio interference.

WHERE TO LEARN MORE

Beiser, Arthur. Physics, 5th ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991.

Bloomfield, Louis A. "How Things Work: Radio." How Things Work (Web site). <http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/HTW//radio.html> (April 27, 2001).

Harrison, David. "Sound" (Web site). <http://www.newi.ac.uk/buckley/sound.html> (April 27, 2001).

Interference Handbook/Federal Communications Commission (Web site). <http://www.fcc.gov/cib/Publications/tvibook.html> (April 27, 2001).

Internet Resources for Sound and Light (Web site). <http://electro.sau.edu/SLResources.html> (April 25, 2001).

"Light—A-to-Z Science." DiscoverySchool.com (Web site). <http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozscience/l/323260.html> (April 27, 2001).

Oxlade, Chris. Light and Sound. Des Plaines, IL: Heinemann Library, 2000.

"Sound Wave—Constructive and Destructive Interference" (Web site). <http://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/~chin/interference.html> (April 27, 2001).

Topp, Patricia. This Strange Quantum World and You. Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin, 1999.

WHKY Radio and TV (Web site). <http://www.whky.com/antenna.html> (April 27, 2001).