E1: Sound and thermal energy

The teachers in the episode below have been discussing the forms of energy that are associated with a whistle.  This question has prompted them to wonder what is the difference between sound and thermal and kinetic energy.  Here's a snippet from that conversation.  (The stuff in the middle is less interesting to me than the stuff at the beginning and end, so if you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip 1:54-4:40ish.)

Episode title: E1 120810 1448 T7 sound vs thermal

Transcript: [00:00:00.00] Sid: Okay.  How does it become patterned?  Do you know what I mean?  Like, so there's heat (inaudible) and then sound is this motion energy that is, how does it get in a pattern?  As opposed to?
Off screen: How does it get in what?

[00:00:14.27] Sid: Actually get in a pattern.
Side talk about "pattern."
Julie: We spent the entire ride home yesterday, we did like 25 different accents as we were driving.  So, I hear a pattern, like she says, 'pattern.' (Laughter)  More talk about pattern.

[00:00:46.29] Lane: Now let's respect your question, how does it get in a pattern?
Sid: Yeah, what, what?
(Inaudible comment off screen)
Sid: What makes the atoms all be sound, so that it goes (inaudible).

[00:01:05.03] Wendy (?): Well they're all random till they get hit by the speaker.
Sid: Yeah, but why?  Why, what makes it?
Steve: So, the cone of the speaker is physically pushing the air.
Debra: Yeah.

[00:01:13.06] Bryan: Change the amplitude [on the PhET sim], Lane, and then watch what happens.
Steve: If you look, you can see the cone of the speaker actually moving.
Lane: Change the amplitude. (inaudible)
Sid: Allright, so here's another question that went with that: During this sound production, is heat also produced?
(Lots of 'sure's, 'yes'es.)

[00:01:32.27] Sid: So why would those particles jiggling be random, but the jiggling of the other atoms be patterned?  If they're being produced at the same time?
Lane (and others): Hmmm.
Steve: Eventually, all that sound energy is gonna dissipate, because the sound's not gonna go on forever, it's gonna spread out, and it's just gonna heat up the environment.

[00:01:54.26] Lane: Let's see if that's true.  (Messing with PhET sim.)  I'm just curious. (inaudible)
Debra: I wanna see the light one.  Uh, what is this?
Lane: Well, Steve is making the claim that [all that pattern.] I turned off the speaker, and Steve claims that all that pattern will (dissipate?).
Debra: [What just happened?]

[00:02:10.20] Debra: Oh.
(Oh!  Wow!  In the background.)
Debra: Oh, so much for Brownian motion.
Someone in background: That's what air looks like!  Just like that. 
(It's hard to hear what others are saying because there's a lot of side talk, and Debra is mic'ed.)

[00:02:27.05] Debra: They twitched.  That's so weird.
Wendy: In the corner.
(Talking about sim and laughing.)
Alia: Wouldn't it be interesting if it actually showed us the sound that it was making?

[00:02:46.14] Lane: Where does the sound energy go, right?
Debra: That's funny.
Lane: As soon as I get out of class today, I'm going to email the PhET (inaudible) and say where did they go?
Debra: That's right.  Shoot em a email.

[00:02:57.27] Lane: It seemed like it went away.
Debra: What's...
Lane: If I listen to Feynman, I say not only does the air no longer have thermal energy in it...
Someone off camera: It's a solid!
Lane: It's a solid.
(Laughter)

[00:03:12.26] Off screen: (You've got to make a really big noise) to liquify the air.
Lane: Noah Finkelstein is gonna hear from me.
Debra: Finkelst. (Laugh)
(Lots of talking.)

[00:03:53.26] Debra: Can you show that, is there a...
Lane: (Some feature of sim?) are just a way of helping you focus on one particle.
Debra: Can you show, add the detector?
Lane: What's that?
Debra: Can you add the detector?

[00:04:11.02] Lane: The detector?
Debra: It's at the...
Lane: Yeah, it's not going to be very exciting, I don't think.  It might, I don't know.  So it's measuring the air pressure at a specific location, but I can pick.  So I wanna go there.
Debra: Does that help you?  Bryan?  Does that make sense to you?

[00:04:42.23] Bryan: Yeah.  It made sense, I just couldn't get past the (inaudible).
Joe: So the difference between sound and heat, right, to me, right, has to do with, we all talk about vibration makes sound, and the difference between vibration and other things is the fact that it's in patterned, regular intervals, right?
Sid: And (inaudible -- interacting with something?).

[00:04:56.09] Joe: With the air.
Sid: Yes.
Joe: That's why they say you can't hear in space, right?
Sid: (inaudible -- speaker hitting the air), that's creating the jiggling (inaudible)

[00:05:03.21] Debra: Exactly, that's why you can't hear in space.
Sid: (inaudible)
Debra: Vocal cords.
Joe: But what I don't buy is that there are things that I can't picture vibrating but that still make sound.

[00:05:17.28] Joe: I wish I could think of an example now that I said that out loud, but, uh.  There are things (someone clapping) that I don't picture producing that kind of vibration (someone dragging chair on the ground) but I know it makes noise.
(Yeahs from around the room.)
Debra: Yeah, I'm thinkin' skid.

[00:05:32.06] Joe: How did that make an evenly distributed disturbance?
Sid: Yeah.
Joe: That was just weird and irregular, but yet it made (inaudible).
(General agreement from the room.)

[00:05:41.06] Don: Slip a stick on the floor.
Sid: Maybe it's a bunch of individual, one-pulse noises.
Joe: So what does a one-pulse noise look like or sound like.  Can you hear that?  Is there such a thing? Is it possible to have a one-pulse noise?  I don't know.  (inaudible)  I'm done.

[00:06:05.21] Lane: So, Joe, you're gonna do this, [you're gonna] do a reading uh, this weekend that will, not answer that question, but...
Debra: [Don't cry.]
Someone in background: Of course not!
Lane: ...it's probably turn the screws a little more.
Joe: That's good.

Commentary: This episode caught my eye because of the questions that Sid and Joe ask -- how does sound become patterned; is heat always produced when sound is; oh!, so that's why you can't hear in space; and how do not-obviously-vibrating things make sound?  I don't know the answers to these questions -- at least not deeply know.

And I wanted to clip this for Alex (and maybe Sam).  I'm interested to hear what they think.