What is Sound? What is Light? Physics for the Young Minds

At the tender age of 11-12, children start to exhibit a form of thinking that involves developing notions and understanding based on their observations and experiences. This is when we introduce natural phenomenological sciences such as physics into the world of these young minds—not as pre-defined laws that leave no room for experiential understanding, but as awe-inspiring phenomena that can be observed, experienced, and contemplated.

Why is it better to bring physics as a phenomenological experience rather than through fixed definitions for rote learning and pre-solved problem-solving? Well, the answer is yours to find!

What am I truly after? Self-development that fosters true problem-solving capacity?  Or merely checking off topics from a curriculum book?

This is the second time I have facilitated the introduction to physics for 6th graders and it has given me the opportunity to rediscover the wonders of physics alongside them. This was a two-week block—one week dedicated to the concept of Sound and the second week to the concept of Light—at our brilliant community-driven center for education, the Head Heart Hands Learning Foundation.

What is Sound? What is Light?

Here’s what we ‘understood’ through self-contemplation of our experiences:

• Sound is the inner quality of an object that reveals itself in the form of a unique timbre when called forth through any form of physical impact.

• Light must also be the inherent nature of physical matter that manifests when the conditions suffice. Light manifests in physical matter, creating self-bright surfaces like the flame of a candle, the filament of a bulb, or even our dear Sun.
  

To come to any understanding of a phenomenon, one must have the opportunity to experience it. Light is an experience, as is Darkness. Neither is Light the absence of Darkness nor is Darkness the absence of Light. They are manifest when the conditions suffice. We witnessed this firsthand as we sat in a room enveloped in complete darkness, with dark sheets covering every opening. Gradually, light began to seep through the tiniest gaps in the covers, revealing the objects in the room.

Objects reveal themselves in the presence of other bright or lit objects. Darkness must probably be the absence of physical matter then!

What the eyes see is probably neither light nor darkness but objects that reveal themselves in the experience of a combination of light and darkness. We are blind in all bright light without darkness or contrast, as we are in absolute darkness without light. It is the physical object/matter that the human eye sees, whether a self-bright (glowing) one, or one that is lit in the presence of a glowing object.

Experiencing Sound and Light

Straying away from contemporary definitions such as ‘Sound is a pressure wave created by a vibrating object’ or ‘Light is electromagnetic radiation visible to the human eye’—which could seem abstract at a tender age and limit the child's capacity to truly experience, perceive, and attempt to understand Sound or Light—we first delve into the experience of Silence and Sound and Darkness and Light. Before bringing pre-conceived notions, we allow our whole being to engage with the nature of Sound and Light.

What is Sound? we wonder...

"When I sit in silence intending to listen, I hear many sounds.", says one student.

I hear the sounds that are within the radar of my attention. I don’t hear some other sounds that are right there! She heard it, but I did not!", says another.

"I don’t hear all of the instructions that my mother gives me every morning.", they say. "I only hear when I truly want to hear!"

"When I close my eyes, I hear more and more—definitely more than when my eyes are open. I wonder why! Is it because I am less distracted? My eyes see and my ears hear, so when I use both, my attention is divided—sometimes to what catches the eye and sometimes to what catches the ear. But if I close my eyes, I only hear. Even then my attention wanders; I get drawn into thoughts, and when I do, I stop hearing.", they say. "Attention is the key to hearing! Even though I hear better when my eyes are closed, once I identify a single object of sound, then ‘looking’ at that object of sound enhances my hearing of it. How cool is that! When I closed my eyes and listened for a striking sound, I couldn’t tell if wood was struck on wood or wood was struck on metal, but when I opened my eyes and saw the object of attention, I could hear the subtle difference."

Sound manifests when there is physical movement or impact, whether it is our vocal cords, musical instruments, or other sounds in our surroundings. Where there is physical impact, there is sound; where there is sound, there is physical impact. The physical manifestation of sound revealed its beautiful vibratory patterns as we observed the water rippling in a singing wine glass when its rim was rubbed with a wet finger, and also as the sand danced on the Chandni plate. The sense perception or experience of sound through air and solid surfaces like wood, stone, and metal are different. Experimenting with the intensity of sound with distances and against objects like a wall are just some of the many discoveries we made.

Other experiments with Light and Darkness brought us to the notion of experiencing colours. As light and darkness mingle—such as when lighting a few candles in a dark room to eventually switching on a large bulb—we experience the birth of shades and hues and eventually bright colours.

Colours are born from a unique and perfect combination of Dark and Light!

The Wonder Continues

At the end of two weeks, we were left with a whole lot of curious, open-ended, and very meaningful ‘what ifs’ and ‘I wonder’ statements. Here are a few:

• I wonder why I can hear a lot more with my eyes closed.

• I wonder if there are any sounds in the world that I haven’t yet experienced. This wonder came from the experiment on mystery sounds where I struck objects behind a screen and the students had to guess the object. What they found is that in their life experience, they’ve heard so many sounds that any sound immediately creates a flash of an image in their mind’s eye, showing them exactly what object or material must be making that sound.

• I wonder what is the relation between sound and emotion.

• Sometimes, why do we see things that do not exist in the darkness?

What thoughts does this stir up in you?

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