A tuning fork oscillates at 512 Hz, and sound travels at 345 m/s. How many wave peaks reach the eardrum of a person sitting near the fork in 2 seconds?

1. The frequency of a sound is defined as the number of waves that pass a point per unit time. 2. This count depends only on frequency and elapsed time, not on the speed of sound, since speed only affects how far apart the waves are spread in space, not how many of them occur per second. 3. Identify the knowns: f = 512 Hz and t = 2 s. 4. Number of peaks = f x t = 512 Hz x 2 s = 1024, matching option D. 5. Options A and B both look like the 345 m/s speed value was folded into the calculation, which is not needed here since only frequency and time matter. 6. Option C, about 690, does not follow from any straightforward use of the given numbers either. _Source: OpenStax Physics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 14 "Sound", section 14.1 Speed of Sound, Frequency, and Wavelength_