Content about “sound wave”

The Laplacian operator turns up all over maths.  Here's a reasonably light-touch introduction and a look at why it forms part of the wave equation.

When sound waves leave your speaker they wreak havoc with mathematics.

Many things make a noise when you hit them, but not many are commonly used to play music — why is that? Jim Woodhouse looks at harmonic and not so harmonic frequencies and at how percussion instruments are tuned.