Walker, Halliday & Resnick — Waves-II: Problem 56

56 The crest of a Parasaurolophus dinosaur skull is shaped somewhat like a trombone and contains a nasal passage in the form of a long, bent tube open at both ends. The dinosaur may have used the passage to produce sound by setting up the fundamental mode in it. (a) If the nasal passage in a certain Parasaurolophus fossil is 1.8 m long, what frequency would have been produced? (b) If that dinosaur could be recreated (as in Jurassic Park), would a person with a hearing range of 60 Hz to 20 kHz be able to hear that fundamental mode and, if so, would the sound be high or low frequency? Fossil skulls that contain shorter nasal passages are thought to be those of the female Parasaurolophus. (c) Would that make the female’s fundamental frequency higher or lower than the male’s?