Laboratory Exercises for a Non-Major Course in the Physics of Music

物理系的一个主要目标是为非科学专业的主题课程，题为音乐物理的改进。 本课程涉及运动和波的物理学，并研究了音乐家和物理学家对相同声音的感知，音阶的构建以及乐器主要组合的物理属性等主题。 从历史上看，这门课程一直是一门只有三个简短实验练习的讲座课程。 该项目通过增加每周一次的实验室来显着增强课程，旨在使每个学生更有效地了解物理学的本质以及实验与理论之间的相互作用。 该实验室也给每个学生一个更安全，个人熟悉的物理现象中讨论的过程。 新设备正在支持关于各种乐器产生的声音的频谱组成和作为乐器重要特征的共振性质的实验。 这一发展很可能会增加选修物理课程的非理科专业学生的数量，并有助于该部门对越来越尖锐的国家呼吁做出回应，要求理科部门重新关注他们为非理科专业学生提供的课程。

A major goal of the Department of Physics is the improvement of a topical course for non-science-majors entitled Physics of Music. This course treats the physics of motion and waves and investigates such topics as musicians' and physicists' perceptions of the same sounds, the construction of musical scales, and the physical attributes of the major groupings of musical instruments. Historically, this course has been a lecture course with only three short laboratory exercises. The project is significantly enhancing the course by adding a weekly laboratory designed to acquaint each student more effectively with the nature of physics and the interplay between experiment and theory. The laboratory is also giving each student a more secure, personal familiarity with the physical phenomena discussed in the course. The new equipment is supporting experiments on the spectral composition of the sounds produced by various musical instruments and on the nature of resonance as an important characteristic of musical instruments. This development is likely to increase the number of non-science-majors electing physics courses, and is contributing to the department's response to increasingly strident national calls that science departments give renewed attention to their offerings for non-science-majors.