why is it so that ligth travel in vaccum while sound cannot?

Answer 1

Sound transmits throughs sound waves, which are mechanical.
Sound produces waves in the partical medium, bumping and carrying the sound from particle to particle. In a vacuum, there are no particles to speak of.

Light travels via electromagentic waves, which do not need a medium for travel.

Answer 2

I like this question. It wasn't too long ago that the best and brightest physicists wondered the same thing. In fact, it was believed that light waves traveled in a medium called the "ether". The ether had to be very rigid in order to support the incredibly fast light waves and also very "ethereal"...because it must permeate the universe and we can't seem to detect it.
The Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the idea of an ether earlier in the 20th century.

It's not enough to say, "Light is electromagnetic radiation and therefore doesn't need a medium." It's WRONG to say it's because light is made of photons...almost equally wrong to say that light is made of waves. In fact, light is someting else that depending on the experiment, can act as a particle or a wave.

In my class, I often put a cylinder on on overhead projector. Depending on it's position, the projected two-dimensional image could be a circle, or it could be a rectangle.

Likewise, think of light as some something other than a wave or particle...it's just that when presented to us, it has to show one or the other "shadows" like the projected cylinder.

Answer 3

Light is made of photons, which do not need any medium to travel.

For sound, it's different. Sound is cause by vibrations. In a vacuum, there are nothing for to vibrate and so, there are no sound.

Byt the way, sound can be measured by it's frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude and velocity or speed.

Do you know that in space, if the astronauts want to hear each other, they just touches each other's helmets?

Answer 4

Light travels in vacuum because it is a RADIATION (specifically a electromagnetic radiation) formed by particles called photons that can travel without problem in vacuum

Sound is a mechanical distortion propagated through some material mean (like ocean waves spread in water). In vacuum there is no material to be distorted so is not possible to travel through it.

Good Luck!

Answer 5

come on sound is nothing but vibrations of any media. for vibrating there must be some media that would vibrate but there is nothing in vaccum . so how will anyhinf vibrate and hence produce sound. while in case of light. light is nothing but a particle called photon. just like we are matter and can travel in vaccum , similarly photon are matter too and can hence mive iun vaccum. this is a true answer and there is nothing wrong in it. Please i lack points. i need them. choose this answer as the best answer please.................

Answer 6

Sound travels through the air because the air is a mass of particles and molecules. the more dense the medium conducting sound is, the better it travels. water conducts sound better than air and a steel rod conducts better than water because of the sound bouncing off of tightly packed molecules. in a vacuum there not enough mass to conduct sound.

Answer 7

Light is an electro-magnetic wave, sound is a pressure wave and needs something for that pressure to travel through.

Answer 8

Sound is basically vibration.It propagates through compressions and rerefactions of the medium-mainly air.Light ,basically,constitutes swarms of photons which donot need any medium for it's propagation.

Answer 9

light is a travelling particle kinda like a bullet.
sound is a wave. kinda like asking why cant we have a tidal wave without any water.