Help Dr. Blackstock and Dr. Hamilton with their ASA paper

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Design of homework problems in physical acoustics


A variety of methods exist to help students master material in their acoustics courses. The method chosen depends a great deal on the course. In the graduate acoustics courses at UT Austin the methods include system identification and design projects in the course on acoustical transducers, measurements and data analysis in the courses on architectural acoustics and ultrasonics, development of computer codes based on the sonar equation in the course on underwater acoustics, and a project usually requiring literature review in the course on nonlinear acoustics. Homework problems is the method of choice for the two-semester basic course on physical acoustics, because mastery of the fundamental principles of acoustics requires students to immerse themselves in the details specific to each particular topic. Learning basic acoustics is a lot like learning calculus: one learns by doing. This presentation discusses the philosophy behind creation of the homework problems that appear in the textbook Fundamentals of Physical Acoustics by Blackstock [Wiley 2000]. The problems don’t require use of a computer. They do require judgement over plugging and chugging. The student must decide what section of a chapter applies to the problem assigned and also what approximations are permissible to simplify the work.