To put it simply, sound travels slower at the surface level than at lower depths. These affect the particle arrangement and, by extension, the speed of sound. You need to understand that, as the ocean gets deeper, its temperature decreases and its pressure increases. Thus, sound waves can travel much faster underwater as the wave bumps and vibrates with more molecules. As you might already know, water has an impressive density due to its unique molecular arrangement. The speed of sound is also dependent on density. That’s because salt molecules respond quickly to the disturbances of neighboring molecules, propagating sound waves faster and at longer distances. SalinityĪs a result of its high salinity, seawater, such as oceans, allows sound to travel up to 33 meters per second faster than the freshwater found in lakes. However, as mentioned earlier, the physical characteristics of the medium highly affect the speed.
When it comes to water, sound can travel as fast as 1,498 meters per second, or approximately 3,350 miles per hour. For instance, sound waves will travel slower in a less dense and more compressible medium. In other words, the medium’s density and compressibility directly affect the speed of sound. As a matter of fact, sound travels at different speeds depending on the medium. More specifically, when objects vibrate, they cause the nearby molecules to also vibrate, triggering a chain reaction of sound wave vibrations in the specific medium.īut no matter which definition you prefer, you’ll notice a similarity - sound needs a medium to propagate and will not travel through a vacuum. In physics, sound is produced in the form of a pressure wave. However, there are two definitions regarding how sound is produced.įor starters, in physiology, sound is created when an object’s vibrations travel through a medium until they reach the human eardrum. Generally speaking, sound is a type of longitudinal mechanical wave that travels through a medium. But Why Is It Harder to Talk to Someone Underwater?.Why Does Sound Travel Faster in Water Than Air?.This explains why the answer of 333 m/s is slightly above the accepted value for the speed of sound in air. The values recorded will be dependent on the reaction time of the observer, and will not be entirely accurate. One person might stop the timer a fraction of a second later than another person. However, this experimental method is flawed as humans do not use stop clocks identically to one another. The accepted value for the speed of sound in air is 330 m/s. distance ( s ) is measured in metres (m)Īn observer 400 m away records a 1.2 s time difference between seeing the hand signal and hearing the bang of the starting pistol.speed ( v ) is measured in metres per second (m/s).The speed of sound can be calculated using the equation: A distant observer stood 400 metres (m) away records the time between seeing the action (the light reaches the time keeper immediately) and hearing the sound (which takes more time to cover the same distance). For example, a person fires a starting pistol and raises their hand in the air at the same time.
Light travels much faster than sound through air. The vibrating particles pass the sound through to a person's ear and vibrate the ear drum. When sound is created, the air particles vibrate and collide with each other, causing the vibrations to pass between air particles. The air is made up of many tiny particles. Measuring the speed of sound in air and water
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