Reason For Accuracy
A less accurate method of determining wavelength with a tube, used before Kundt, is simply to measure the length of the tube at resonance, which is approximately equal to a multiple of a half wavelength. The problem with this method is that when a tube of air is driven by a sound source, its length at resonance is not exactly equal to a multiple of the half-wavelength. Because the air at the source end of the tube, next to the speaker's diaphragm, is vibrating, it is not exactly at a node (point of zero amplitude) of the standing wave. The node actually occurs some distance beyond the end of the tube. Kundt's method allowed the actual locations of the nodes to be determined with great accuracy.
Read more about this topic: Kundt's Tube
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