what is the speed of sound?

Answer 1

The speed of sound is a term used to describe the speed of sound waves passing through an elastic medium. The speed varies with the medium employed (for example, sound waves move faster through water than through air), as well as with the properties of the medium, especially temperature. The term is commonly used to refer specifically to the speed of sound in air. At sea level, at a temperature of 21 °C (70 °F) and under normal atmospheric conditions, the speed of sound is 344 m/s (770 mph). The speed varies depending on atmospheric conditions; the most important factor is the temperature. Humidity has little effect on the speed of sound, nor does air pressure per se. Air pressure has no effect at all in an ideal gas approximation. This is because pressure and density both contribute to sound velocity equally, and in an ideal gas the two effects cancel out, leaving only the effect of temperature. Sound usually travels more slowly with greater altitude, due to reduced temperature.

Answer 2

There has been a nice technical answer here, so no need to repeat what has been said :) I will simply put it in layman's terms. This is not meant to be scientific, it's meant to help you understand. The principles are correct, the complicated details have been left out though.

Sound is caused by vibrations. Think of playing pool or snooker. You hit one ball, this causes the next ball to move, and that ball will cause the next ball to move. Sound travels in much the same way.

This means that where there are lots of molecules clustered together, balls will hit each other much faster and sound will therefore travel much faster. Air is not a great way for sound to travel - it is very thin (obviously...we can walk through it). Water conveys sound much better for example (you don't wanna know how far away sharks can hear sound!!!)

Other factors affect sound too - temperate as a poster has said (the hotter molecules are, the more energetic they are). Elasticity and density too. So, the answer to your question: Sound has different speeds under different circumstances. This varies so much, that it's impossible to give you a real figure.

Answer 3

The speed of sound is a term used to describe the speed of sound waves passing through an elastic medium. The speed varies with the medium employed (for example, sound waves move faster through water than through air), as well as with the properties of the medium, especially temperature. The term is commonly used to refer specifically to the speed of sound in air. At sea level, at a temperature of 21 °C (70 °F) and under normal atmospheric conditions, the speed of sound is 344 m/s (770mph).

The speed of sound is sometimes used in describing the nature of substances (see the article on sodium).

In conventional use and in scientific literature sound velocity, v, and sound speed, c, are used synonymously and should not be confused with sound particle velocity (also symbolized as v), which is the velocity of the individual particles.

The speed varies depending on atmospheric conditions; the most important factor is the temperature. Humidity has little effect on the speed of sound, nor does air pressure per se. Air pressure has no effect at all in an ideal gas approximation. This is because pressure and density both contribute to sound velocity equally, and in an ideal gas the two effects cancel out, leaving only the effect of temperature. Sound usually travels more slowly with greater altitude, due to reduced temperature. An approximate speed of sound in 0 % humidity (dry) air, in meters per second (m·s-1), at temperatures near 0 °C, can be calculated from:

c_{\mathrm{air}} = 331{.}5 + (0{.}6 \cdot \vartheta) \ \mathrm{m \cdot s^{-1}}\,


where \vartheta\, (vartheta) is the temperature in degrees Celsius(°C), not Kelvin.

This equation is derived from the first two terms of the Taylor expansion of the equation:

c_{\mathrm{air}} = 331.5 \sqrt{1+\frac{\vartheta}{273.15}}\ \mathrm{m \cdot s^{-1}}

This equation is correct to a wider temperature range, but still depends on the approximation of heat capacity being independent of temperature, and will fail particularly at higher temperatures. It gives good predictions in relatively dry, cold, low pressure conditions, such as the Earth's stratosphere. A derivation of these equations will be given in a later section.

Answer 4

330km per second in air. No speed in vacuum and about 1400km pe second in water. The speed of sound increases as the density of the medium increases

Answer 5

In air at sea level and "room temperature" about 700 miles an hour.
In water about 5 times faster.
In some solids, even faster.

Answer 6

app 330ms^-1 in air
app 1500ms^-1 in liquid
and app 5000ms^-1 in solid

Answer 7

its about 333 meters per second