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However, the speed of sound varies from substance to substance: typically, sound travels most slowly in gases, faster in liquids, and fastest in solids. For example, while sound travels at 343 m/s in air, it travels at 1481 m/s in water (almost 4.3 times as fast) and at 5120 m/s in iron (almost 15 times as fast).
The speed of sound in any chemical element in the fluid phase has one temperature-dependent value. In the solid phase, different types of sound wave may be propagated, each with its own speed: among these types of wave are longitudinal (as in fluids), transversal, and (along a surface or plate) extensional.
S waves can travel only through solids, as fluids (liquids and gases) do not support shear stresses. S waves are slower than P waves, and speeds are typically around 60% of that of P waves in any given material. Shear waves can not travel through any liquid medium, [6] so the absence of S waves in earth's outer core suggests a liquid state.
An acoustic wave is a mechanical wave that transmits energy through the movements of atoms and molecules. Acoustic waves transmit through fluids in a longitudinal manner (movement of particles are parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave); in contrast to electromagnetic waves that transmit in transverse manner (movement of particles at a right angle to the direction of propagation ...
When sound is moving through a medium that does not have constant physical properties, it may be refracted (either dispersed or focused). [5] Spherical compression (longitudinal) waves. The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted as sound can travel through all forms of matter: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas.
The equations for sound in a fluid given above also apply to acoustic waves in an elastic solid. Although solids also support transverse waves (known as S-waves in seismology ), longitudinal sound waves in the solid exist with a velocity and wave impedance dependent on the material's density and its rigidity , the latter of which is described ...
Rayleigh waves emanating outward from the epicenter of an earthquake travel along the surface of the earth at about 10 times the speed of sound in air (0.340 km/s), that is ~3 km/s. Due to their higher speed, the P and S waves generated by an earthquake arrive before the surface waves.
In gases, sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the molecular mass and temperature of the gas, and pressure has little effect. Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, the speed of sound, and Mach numbers for a steadily moving object may change.