Sounds under water are heard very distinctly in the air immediately above; but the intensity decays with great rapidity as the observer goes farther off, and is altogether inaudible at the distance of two or three hundred yards. So that waves of sound, like those of light, in passing from a dense to a rare medium, are not only refracted, but suffer total reflection at very oblique incidences (N. 189).
The laws of interference extend also to sound. It is clear that two equal and similar musical strings will be in unison if they communicate the same number of vibrations to the air in the same time. But if two such strings be so nearly in unison that one performs a hundred vibrations in a second, and the other a hundred and one in the same period—during the first few vibrations the two resulting sounds will combine to form one of double the intensity of either, because the aërial waves will sensibly coincide in time and place; but one will gradually gain on the other till at the fiftieth vibration it will be half an oscillation in advance. Then the waves of air which produce the sound being sensibly equal, but the receding part of the one coinciding with the advancing part of the other, they will destroy one another, and occasion an instant of silence. The sound will be renewed immediately after, and will gradually increase till the hundredth vibration, when the two waves will combine to produce a sound double the intensity of either. These intervals of silence and greatest intensity, called beats, will recur every second; but if the notes differ much from one another, the alternations will resemble a rattle; and if the strings be in perfect unison, there will be no beats, since there will be no interference. Thus by interference is meant the co-existence of two undulations in which the lengths of the waves are the same. And as the magnitude of an undulation may be diminished by the addition of another transmitted in the same direction, it follows that one undulation may be absolutely destroyed by another when waves of the same length are transmitted in the same direction, provided that the maxima of the undulations are equal, and that one follows the other by half the length of a wave. A tuning-fork affords a good example of interference. When that instrument vibrates, its two branches alternately recede from and approach one another; each communicates its vibrations to the air, and a musical note is the consequence. If the fork be held upright about a foot from the ear, and turned round its axis while vibrating, at every quarter revolution the sound will scarcely be heard, while at the intermediate points it will be strong and clear. This phenomenon arises from the interference of the undulations of air coming from the two branches of the fork. When the two branches coincide, or when they are at equal distances from the ear, the waves of air combine to reinforce each other; but at the quadrants, where the two branches are at unequal distances from the ear, the lengths of the waves differ by half an undulation, and consequently destroy one another.