why dont i hear the sound of my clap underwater when i'm above water?

Question

i know that sound travels in water,then when i clap underwater why dont i be able to hear it when i am above the water.

Answer 1

Almost all the answers are WRONG!!

The right one is that when you clap, the air trapped between your palms in the very impact-moment reaches supersonic speed - producing a supersonic bang. So happens when you sneeze or use a whip. (believe it or not, but the tip of a whep is moving as fast as 2 up to 3 times faster than the speed of sound in the air)

The reason you can't hear the clap when you try to produce it under water is because water is away denser than the air, which makes sonic speed is much higher thee than it is in the air - so you'd have to be able to move your palms roughly three times faster under the water than you can in the air, which you can't do - just because the water is more dense.

So, you can't produce a supersonic water jet; and no supersonic speed is no bang, which is you can't hear a thing!

Remember that if you want to produce a sonic bang in some elastic medium, you need to have a piece of that medium moving supersonic!

Answer 2

we know that we hear the sound from a loud speaker when diaphragms vibrate and this vibration is transferred to the air ( a matching). This is possible because of the light weight of air. Now take the case of water . Inside the water you can scream or clap. No doubt your voice vibrate the water molecules. As you see, water is more denser than air . So the transferring rate of the sound has a diminishing behaviour from one place to another. So it decreases as distance increases. If you are inside water you can hear a small sound rather than the original sound you produced . Defenitely it may not reach the surface of water. Here the surface of water can be regarded as the diaphragm of the loud Speaker. since the power that is reaching the surface is very low , it cannot produce or transfer vibration to air . So you are not getting the sound . But case will be different for different sounds.

Answer 3

You probably know this part: Sound is a vibration. When you slam your hands, part of them vibrates at the speed of sound and in turn they vibrate the air or water around them, and if that vibration eventually reaches your ear, you call that sound.

Now, water is a much thicker, more 'sticky' substance than air and has a relatively strong "surface tension." This surface tension is kind of like a sheet of elastic covering the whole surface of the water. If you clap your hands and send out the sonic vibrations they shoot out in all directions. When the vibrations hit the surface of the water the elastic surface tension absorbs the sonic energy and keeps most of it from passing on in to the air.
I say "most" of the energy because if it's really quiet and you clap your hands hard, you can still hear it. Also, if you clap your hands inside a bucket of water, you should be able to hear it better through the sides of the bucket than from the top. This is because the water is pressing against the side of the bucket and the energy is more easily transmitted.

Answer 4

You know, sound travells at a higher speed underwater but it has a great difficulty going from one medium to anathor. So if the water reaches your ear drum, you may very well hear it.Also the speed of your hands is reduced underwater so it doesn't make an efficiently a loud sound.

Answer 5

Haha that may be somewhat humorous x] And yeah, I continuously clap after I pay interest to Janie's were given a gun :O Yeah...i'm getting there with sweet toddler O' Mine and that i continuously imagine an identical ingredient's happened with Stairway to Heaven yet then I pay interest to it lower back and that i'm like "What the hell is incorrect with me? this will by no ability get previous!" Yeah, we are going to see. yet another Brick contained in the Wall is likewise cutting it close...i'll tolerate the start yet then I finally end up turning it off. and likely! They play Foxey woman so damn a lot, it really is somewhat ridiculous. My mom honestly grew to grow to be to me in the destiny and stated "in the experience that they play this an additional effective time..." and that i'm on the verge of skipping Bohemian Rhapsody even as it comes up on my ipod. ok, i'm carried out blabbing.

Answer 6

coz most of the sound waves are reflected by the surface of water. If the sound is very intense you can probably hear the sound. Infact the sound can travel aprox. 3 times faster in water than air.

Answer 7

Because sound travels faster in water than in air. when u clap underwater the sound travels faster than above water. The sound eventually does not reach your ears as fast as it travels underwater.

Answer 8

u see,when u calp ur hand above water,then the sound can easily come in cantact with ur ear drums coz there is no obstacle for it.on the other hand when u clap underwater the water molecules block its path and though it manages to come out,it is tooo faint.

Answer 9

because sound travels in air due to free molecules an d no absorbing of sound in air , but water denser than air aborbs sound waves..so u dont hear ur clap..keep clapping

Answer 10

You are not under the water, water is a dense system and can conduct the sound to a denser systems, not less dense like air around you.