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per wiki, Acoustic absorption refers to

the process by which a material, structure, or object takes in sound energy when sound waves are encountered, as opposed to reflecting the energy. Part of the absorbed energy is transformed into heat and part is transmitted through the absorbing body. The energy transformed into heat is said to have been 'lost'.

There are 3 possibilities in total, namely, reflecting + transformed into heat + transmitted through the absorbing body. Is this a complete list of phenomena that sound wave would encounter during travelling？In other words, is there any other phenomena that sound wave would encounter during travelling？

how about travelling itself, such as the enerny causing the movement of air molecules to carrying to sound wave?

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  • $\begingroup$ Related post by OP: physics.stackexchange.com/q/527353/2451 $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic ♦
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 8:58
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    $\begingroup$ You can never get a complete list of possibilities, since there are many very special cases: refracting due to different air densities, or encountering a microphone and having part of its energy converted to an electronic signal that emerges elsewhere... What possibilities make sense to think about depends on what you want to do with the answer. $\endgroup$
    – Anders Sandberg
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 11:18
  • $\begingroup$ @AndersSandberg how about travelling itself, such as the enerny causing the movement of air molecules to carrying to sound wave? $\endgroup$
    – zghqh
    Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 22:00

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Sound is a wave and most wave phenomena (at least those expressed in classical physics) apply to sound.

To name a few, absorption, transmission, reflection (those three are directly related from an energy point of view), attenuation (different from absorption), refraction and diffraction (other phenomena such as dispersion, but they are not mentioned that often).

You can find a basic treatment of those phenomena in books related to acoustics such as Fundamentals of Acoustics by Kinsler, Frey et al., Foundations of Acoustics by Eugen Skudrzyk and Acoustics - A Textbook for Engineers and Physicists by Jerry Ginsberg.

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