Question

List and describe the steps of energy transfers that occur that allow a digital recording to be played through a speaker and ultimately become sound waves.

Answer 1

Initially we need electric energy in order to turn on the device that sends the wave and the speaker.

As you may know, the recording is sent as electric waves, that are read by the speaker, and then the speaker oscillates in the same frequency and amplitude that the electric waves in the input.

So we have a transformation of electric energy into kinetic energy (the membrane of the speaker that oscillates)

The movement of the membrane is what causes the sound to come out of the speaker, so the final state of the energy is sound energy.

So the transformations are:

electric energy (to turn on the device and send the signal) - kinetic energy - sound energy.