“Physics in unexpected places: the soda straw clarinet”
MSUM Physics & Astronomy Seminar Series Presents:
Physics in unexpected places: the soda straw clarinet
By MSUM Professor, Dr. Ananda Shastri
Friday, September 5
3:00pm
Hagen 325
A soda straw clarinet (SSC) is made by flattening one end of a soda straw, and cutting triangular flaps into it. If you put the flaps in your mouth and blow, a sound somewhere between a duck call and a clarinet emerges, depending on how hard you exhale. The formulas often seen in physics books for the resonance frequencies of cylindrical pipes do not give a good description of how the SSC behaves. What factors does the frequency depend on? Can you predict it from basic properties of the soda straw? How does understanding this problem relate to other areas of physics? The answers will surprise you, so come to this talk and learn more!