Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

What kind of data chart can be used when experimenting with making music in glass bottletops? We are trying to determine how the frequency of a note produced is related to the length of a column.

rachelet,

Welcome to Science Buddies and thank you for the question. If you have a way to accurately measure the frequency of the note then I would suggest plotting the data on a graph with the length of the bottle neck along the x-axis vs. frequency along the y-axis to show the relationship between the two.

To ensure you are only changing bottle neck size (independent variable) and measuring frequency (dependent variable), I suggest you make sure you are using bottles with the same parameters (i.e. diameter mouth and column, glass thickness, etc…) and ensure the air flow across the bottle to make the note is at the same pressure/velocity and angle to the bottle. Because of variations involved in a human blowing air through their lips, it would be ideal if you could construct an air blowing machine that could do it the same way each time. If you aren’t able to do this, then make sure you identify this in the experiment procedures part of the report.