How record players work

As you probably know, sound is made up of vibrations.

The surface of the record is carefully pressed to make the needle of the record player vibrate in exactly the right way to recreate the music. These vibrations are then amplified so you can hear them.

You can actually demonstrate to yourself how it works quite easily if you have a piece of paper, a cocktail stick and an old record you don't mind risking damaging!

Cut out a square of paper - roughly 10cm square - and thread it onto the cocktail stick to make a sail (in other words the stick passes through the bottom of the paper in the middle and the the top).

If you now run the tip of the cocktail stick around the grove of a record, you can (very faintly) hear the music - this is because the stick is made to vibrate by the groves on the record and the paper slightly amplifies those vibrations.

A record player works in exactly the same way, but uses electricity to amplify the music a lot more!