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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).
Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.
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 rarefaction is the farthest distance apart in the longitudinal wave and the compression is the closest distance together. The speed of the longitudinal wave is increased in higher index of refraction, due to the closer proximity of the atoms in the medium that is being compressed. Sound is a longitudinal wave.
In acoustics, Stokes's law of sound attenuation is a formula for the attenuation of sound in a Newtonian fluid, such as water or air, due to the fluid's viscosity.It states that the amplitude of a plane wave decreases exponentially with distance traveled, at a rate α given by = where η is the dynamic viscosity coefficient of the fluid, ω is the sound's angular frequency, ρ is the fluid ...
The sound source is traveling at 1.4 times the speed of sound, c (Mach 1.4). Because the source is moving faster than the sound waves it creates, it actually leads the advancing wavefront. The sound source will pass by a stationary observer before the observer actually hears the sound it creates.
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The sound of a sonic boom depends largely on the distance between the observer and the aircraft shape producing the sonic boom. A sonic boom is usually heard as a deep double "boom" as the aircraft is usually some distance away. The sound is much like that of mortar bombs, commonly used in firework displays. It is a common misconception that ...