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Red_AtNight t1_iydqvdo wrote

It’s called Helmholtz resonance. The sound is bouncing off of the bottom of the container and reverberating between the top of the container, and the top of the water. As the container fills, there’s less room for the sound waves to reverberate, which makes the waves shorter, and thus sound higher pitched

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Drops-of-Q t1_iydvhr8 wrote

Sound is simply vibrating air. These vibrations propagate as waves. The higher the frequency of that vibration, the higher the pitch of the sound, but the shorter the wavelengths.

The vibrations here are caused by the splashing of the water. These vibrations have tons of different pitches, but when you have air vibrating in an enclosed space the sound waves reverberate within that space which amplifies certain pitches, namely the ones with wavelengths that match the size of the space. As the space for the air to resonate gets smaller, the shorter the wavelengths are that get amplified.

This is exactly how brass instruments work. When you move the slide of a trombone out the tube gets longer so you get a longer wavelength and thus a lower note.

That's the basic explanation, but here is a more advanced explanation of why the wavelength is dependant on the space it can vibrate in, even when it has an open end as a glass has. Many differently shaped rooms have different effects on timbre and pitch. When we talk about this we tend to simplify it by talking about a tube that is open in one end, which conveniently is exactly what most glasses are.

The bottom of the glass is where the air vibrates the least freely, so here it forms what's called a node. You can imagine it as the ends of a jumping rope that barely move, while the center where there is most movement, is what's called the antinode.

If the tube of air were sealed in both ends there would be a node in both ends and an antinode (or several) in the middle just like the jumping rope, but when the tube is open in one and there will always be an antinode in that end where the air can vibrate the most freely.

The fundamental pitch of a tube is the biggest wavelength that can "fit" in it. For a tube that's sealed in both ends that is simply a wavelength the exact length of the tube, but for a tube that's open in one end the fundamental wavelength is twice the length. That's because you have an antinode in one end so it's almost as if only "half the sound wave" is inside the tube.

For a closed tube, the overtones of the fundamental simply have 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 etc. the wavelength, because you'll always have a node in either end, but you can have more nodes and antinodes throughout the tube. But for a tube with an open end they are 1/1.5, 1/2.5, 1/3.5 etc. because you'll always have an antinode in one end.

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dirschau t1_iydrhzy wrote

It's resonance. Like a musical instrument, different shapes and sizes make certain notes louder. Larger volume - lower note. Smaller volume - higher note.

So as you fill up the glass/bottle/whatever, you decrease the air volume, making the sound pitch up.

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pinkplacentasurprise t1_iydsz8q wrote

Think of a guitar string. If you play a note and then slide your finger up the frets, the pitch gets higher as the string gets shorter.

Same thing is happening in the glass. The sound you’re hearing is the air in the cup vibrating and resonating. As it fills, that column of air gets smaller and smaller, like a trombone player pulling the slide in.

As the air column gets smaller, the length of the sound waves gets shorter too which results in a higher pitch.

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BurnItNow t1_iyds2oh wrote

Think of it like a rubber band. When the glass is empty the rubber band is loose. If you pluck the rubber band it will give you a low pitched “boioioing”

As you tighten the tension on the rubber band it gets higher pitch and less boioioioing and more “boing boing bing bing bin bin” tighter rubber band- higher pitch- less vibration.

Same thing but with the cup being the rubber band. As the water fills there is less cup to vibrate.

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Drops-of-Q t1_iydtn09 wrote

I think you're confusing this with playing on wine glasses. This is not the case here

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[deleted] t1_iydpw49 wrote

[removed]

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dirschau t1_iydr24o wrote

No, that's not it for two reasons

One, surface of the water usually just plainly doesn't move fast enough for that effect to take place. And the pitch will change regardless of how fast it fills up.

Two, you get the sane effect from any direction, even behind the bottle. And that's completely illogical for Doppler.

It's just plain old resonance.

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explainlikeimfive-ModTeam t1_iydt1ll wrote

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