Your stereo is set to a sound intensity level (SIL) of 60 dB. I'd like to know what this means in terms of energy flow: what is the intensity of the sound wave this produces? Compute your answer in W/m2, but do not enter units.
So in my problem it would be 1,000,000 OR 10 to the negative 6 or 10E-6..the computer is saying all of these are incorrect
SIL= 10 log (Intensity/reference intensity)
in general, reference power level is 1*10^-12 watts/m^2
taking the antilog of each side:
1E6=I/1E-12
I= 1E-6 watts/m^2
I don't know your computer, but in standard notation it would be
0.000001 or
1*10^-6 or
1E-6 or in some cases 1EE-6
So all of your answers are wrong.
1,000,000 is way off
10^-6 is almost right (1*10^-6 is prefered)
10E-6 is off by a factor of 10.
To compute the intensity of the sound wave produced by a stereo set to a sound intensity level (SIL) of 60 dB, we need to use the equation:
I = 10^(SIL/10)
where I represents the intensity of the sound wave and SIL is the sound intensity level in decibels.
Substituting the given SIL of 60 dB into the equation, we have:
I = 10^(60/10)
I = 10^6
Thus, the intensity of the sound wave produced by the stereo is 10^6 W/m^2.