Noise-canceling headphones are an application of destructive interference. Each side of the headphones uses a microphone to pick up noise, delays it slightly, then rebroadcasts the noise next to your ear where it can interfere with the incoming sound wave of the noise. Suppose you are sitting 1.8 m from an annoying, 200 Hz buzzing sound.

Question

Physics

Jillian Farrell

11 July, 03:07

Noise-canceling headphones are an application of destructive interference. Each side of the headphones uses a microphone to pick up noise, delays it slightly, then rebroadcasts the noise next to your ear where it can interfere with the incoming sound wave of the noise. Suppose you are sitting 1.8 m from an annoying, 200 Hz buzzing sound.

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Madalyn Stanley · Answer 1

The question for this problem would be the minimum headphone delay, in ms, that will cancel this noise.

The 200 Hz. period = (1/200) = 0.005 sec. It will need to be delayed by 1/2, so 0.005/2, that is = 0.0025 sec. So converting sec to ms, will give us the delay of:Delay = 2.5 ms.