Is sound faster than light in water?
Light waves travel much faster than sound waves. Light waves do not need a medium in which to travel but sound waves do. Explain that unlike sound, light waves travel fastest through a vacuum and air, and slower through other materials such as glass or water.
In water, the particles are much closer together, and they can quickly transmit vibration energy from one particle to the next. This means that the sound wave travels over four times faster than it would in air, but it takes a lot of energy to start the vibration.
Light waves travel faster than sound waves in air. Q. We see lightning first and then hear thunder because light travels faster than sound.
So water's high density partly offsets its extreme incompressibility and sound travels at 1,493m/s, about four times faster than through air.
Yes. Light is slowed down in transparent media such as air, water and glass. The ratio by which it is slowed is called the refractive index of the medium and is always greater than one.
Compared with light, which moves at a stunning 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second), sound waves are downright sluggish, moving through air at 0.2 miles per second (0.3 km per second). That's why you see lightning before you hear the thunder.
Have you ever tried talking to your friends underwater? If so, you have discovered that it didn't work very well. Even though sound travels well in water, our vocal cords are not designed to generate underwater sound.
Light waves are electromagnetic transversal waves. They can travel through a vacuum and any particles they contact slow them down. So when they move through denser water they are slowed down more. Sound waves are compressional waves that occur by particles hitting each other and moving the vibration along.
This is a process in which the mastoid, the bone behind our ears, takes in sounds. This allows sound to skip the outer ear all together, making it to the cochlea and eventually sending signals to the brain. Underwater, humans can actually hear sounds at much higher frequencies then they can on land.
So, according to de Rham, the only thing capable of traveling faster than the speed of light is, somewhat paradoxically, light itself, though only when not in the vacuum of space. Of note, regardless of the medium, light will never exceed its maximum speed of 186,282 miles per second.
Can anything go faster than sound?
Yes, wind can travel faster than the speed of sound. Wind is just the bulk movement of a mass of air through space and is in principle no different from a train speeding along or a comet zipping through space.
Darkness travels at the speed of light. More accurately, darkness does not exist by itself as a unique physical entity, but is simply the absence of light. Any time you block out most of the light – for instance, by cupping your hands together – you get darkness.

The speed of sound in ice is nearly 3 times faster than in water. The best way to conceptually approach the speed of sound in a medium is to think of the restoring forces (elasticity) and kinetic energy to be helping the sound wave, and any inertia (molecular mass) or extra density to be slowing down the sound wave.
When underwater objects vibrate, they create sound-pressure waves that alternately compress and decompress the water molecules as the sound wave travels through the sea. Sound waves radiate in all directions away from the source like ripples on the surface of a pond.
Sound waves can be described by the wavelength and frequency of the waves. Sound travels more quickly through solids than through liquids and gases because the molecules of a solid are closer together and, therefore, can transmit the vibrations (energy) faster.
However, light travels at about 0.75c (75% light speed) through water. Some charged particles can move faster than 0.75c in water and therefore travel faster than light. These particles will not, of course, exceed the actual speed of light (c).
As long as nothing absorbs it, the light keeps on traveling forever.
The speed of light is normally about 186,000 miles per second, or fast enough to go around the world seven times in the wink of eye. Scientists succeeded in slowing it down to 38 mph. They did this by shooting a laser through extremely cold sodium atoms, which worked like “optical molasses” to slow the light down.
Light does not really affect sound. Sound is made of vibrations (aka rapid pressure fluctuations) in air, water, or solid material. Light is made of vibrations in the electric and magnetic fields.
Light does not produce sound because it is not a vibration on a material.
Which wave is faster than light?
Quantum entanglement moves faster than light.
If I jiggle one electron, the other electron “senses” this vibration instantly, faster than the speed of light.
The answer is yes. While yelling underwater is still audible, it's not nearly as effective as it is in air.
Acoustic systems provide one-way communications from the surface to divers. An audio signal emitted by a submerged transducer travels through the water to the divers, who can hear the sound directly, without signal receiving equipment.
The answer to the question above is that photons interact with molecules in the water which takes some time causing the net speed to drop.
But can fish hear? Fish don't have ears that we can see, but they do have ear parts inside their heads. They pick up sounds in the water through their bodies and in their internal ear, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Sound travels faster in water than in air. The speed of sound in air under typical conditions is about 343 meters per second, while the speed of sound in water is about 1,480 meters per second.
No, there isn't sound in space.
This is because sound travels through the vibration of particles, and space is a vacuum. On Earth, sound mainly travels to your ears by way of vibrating air molecules, but in near-empty regions of space there are no (or very, very few) particles to vibrate – so no sound.
Nothing moves faster than light in an expanding Universe, and that's both a blessing and a curse. Unless we figure out how to overcome this, all but the closest galaxies may forever be beyond our reach.
In short, space-time would contain the entire history of reality, with each past, present or future event occupying a clearly determined place in it, from the very beginning and for ever. The past would therefore still exist, just as the future already exists, but somewhere other than where we are now present.
Thought is finer than ether, the medium of electricity. Thoughts excel light in speed. While light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, thoughts virtually travel in no time.
Is a bullet faster than sound?
The fastest bullets travel more than 2,600 feet per second. That's equivalent to over 1,800 miles per hour. To put that in perspective, it's amazing to realize that bullets travel over twice the speed of sound!
Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, about 110 decibels, like the sound of an explosion or a thunderclap.
Special relativity states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. If something were to exceed this limit, it would move backward in time, according to the theory.
So light is the fastest thing. Nothing can go faster than that. It's kind of like the speed limit of the universe.
Ergo, light is made of electromagnetic waves and it travels at that speed, because that is exactly how quickly waves of electricity and magnetism travel through space.
The speed of lightning
While the flashes we see as a result of a lightning strike travel at the speed of light (670,000,000 mph) an actual lightning strike travels at a comparatively gentle 270,000 mph.
The speed of sound in the air depends on temperature of the environment where it is traveling. The speed of sound will travel faster in warm temperatures, but will slow down in cold temperatures.
Sound travels fastest through solids. This is because molecules in a solid medium are much closer together than those in a liquid or gas, allowing sound waves to travel more quickly through it.
A: If by chance you start with supercooled water, below 0°C, then sound can nucleate the actual formation of ice. Probably you're thinking instead of starting with warmer water and somehow using sound to cool it.
The verb burble captures both the movement of the water and the sound it makes as it moves. You could also say that a brook or stream or river babbles or ripples or even trickles.
Can sound go from air to water?
Water is denser as compared to air. So, the sound waves travel faster in water as compared to air. So, when sound travels from air to water its speed changes. When sound travels from one medium to another, some part of it gets reflected while only some part gets transmitted.
Sound waves mostly reflect back from any water-air boundary, making it nearly impossible to hear underwater sounds from above. But now physicists have devised a structure that, when placed in contact with the surface, can enhance sound transmission up to 160 times, allowing 30% of the sound energy through.
Because the molecules of matter in a gas are spaced far apart, sound moves slowest through a gas. Sound travels faster in liquids than in gases because molecules are packed more closely together.
Sound waves travel fastest in solids, then in liquids, and the slowest in gases. Liquids are not packed as tightly as solids and gases are very loosely packed. The spacing of the molecules enables sound to travel much faster through a solid than in gases.
Light travels the fastest in Air.
The speed of light is inversely proportional to the optical denstity (refractive index) of a medium. Water is optically denser than air, i.e. it has a higher refractive index than air. Hence, light travels slower in water than in air.
Water preferentially absorbs longer wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is why water appears blue. Sound travels much more slowly than light through water but can travel much further, and so is used for remote sensing and communication in the oceans.
Light, by an extremely large margin. The refractive index of water is 1.333, meaning light travels at c/1.333 (225,000 km/s) in water. The speed of sound in water is 1498 meters per second.
Because in deep water there is a greater wavelength and greater wavelength means greater distance and if there is greater distance then it means that water can flow at a greater speed but in shallow water there is less wavelength which means there is less space and less space means less distance and less distance means ...
According to the laws of physics, as we approach light speed, we have to provide more and more energy to make an object move. In order to reach the speed of light, you'd need an infinite amount of energy, and that's impossible!
Why does sound travel better over water?
Sound travels faster in water compared with air because water particles are packed in more densely. Thus, the energy the sound waves carry is transported faster. This should make the sound appear louder.
Light does not really affect sound. Sound is made of vibrations (aka rapid pressure fluctuations) in air, water, or solid material.
Temperature inversion is the reason why sounds can be heard much more clearly over longer distances at night than during the day—an effect often incorrectly attributed to the psychological result of nighttime quiet.
Light travels at approximately 300,000 kilometers per second in a vacuum, which has a refractive index of 1.0, but it slows down to 225,000 kilometers per second in water (refractive index of 1.3; see Figure 2) and 200,000 kilometers per second in glass (refractive index of 1.5).
Hence, (a) light travels through the water with the highest velocity and (b) light travels through the diamond with the lowest velocity.
The refractive index of water medium is the least amongst all the given media. Therefore, the light will be travelling fastest in the water medium. Hence, the correct option is C.
The optical density of ice is less than that of water. Light travels through ice faster than it travels through water. That's why option ( B ) is correct.