Is sound a form of light or is light a form of sound? Any other info on this?

Question

Yeah, but light has been scientifically proven to produce harmonics inaudible humans. They are called over-tones or something like that.

Answer 1

Light is produced by photons and can travel through vacuum and has a constant velocity. (speed + direction)

Sound is a wave. You hear sound because it vibrates the air.
Sound will also travel through all other mediums water, rock etc. but not through a vacuum, because there is nothing to carry the wave. Sound also travels at different speeds depending on he medium it is travelling through.
Sound is not directional but spreads out like ripples on a pond.

Answer 2

Light and sound are both vibrations of energy at a certain wavelength. For example, when you hum or speak, your vocal cords vibrate at maybe 20-600 cycles per second depending on how low or high you're capable of making a sound. The frequency of middle C is 440 cycles per second, or 440 hertz (hz).

On the other hand, visible light has a frequency of around 10,000,000,000,000,000 hertz. Now, if you play a radio at 97.1 FM, that radio signal has a frequency of 97,100,000 hertz.

So light and sound and even radio are the same thing, vibrations of energy at a specific frequency. Some will only work for energy transmitted within molecules of something (such as air, which is required for sound) and some, the energy can be transmitted directly (for light and radio).

Answer 3

The only thing the two have in common is they are waves. Light however is a form of electromagnetic radiation. It travels much faster than sound , 186000 miles per second. Sound travels only 760 miles per hour. Because light is a form of radiation, it can travel through a vacuum. Sound can not do this because it is a series of pressure waves which exists in either air, water or the earth. However, it is easy to turn sound waves into radio waves. Radio waves are another form of electromagnetic radiation. A radio can then turn the radio waves back into sound waves.

Answer 4

Light is electromagnetic energy. You can also have electromagnetic energy at very low frequencies - at frequencies that happen to be at the same frequencies as 'sound'. Even sharing the same frequency, electromagnetic energy is not sound.

Sound is a change in pressure. To hear, the change in pressure causes vibrations in your ear drum. Sound also travels in waves and can share the same frequencies as electromagnetic energy, but they're different phenomenon.

Edit: I think centretek666's post definitely adds to understanding the difference, but he does make one mistake (in practice at least). The speed of light also depends upon the medium. In fact, different frequencies of light can travel through the same medium at different speeds (as long as the medium isn't a vacuum). It's the different speeds through a medium that causes refraction (seeing a rainbow when light passes through a prism, for example).

Technically, what centretek says is true if you're talking about how fast photons of light travel, but the chances of a photon of light passing straight through a medium without being absorbed by an atom, re-emitted, absorbed by a different atom, etc. is almost miniscule. If you're looking at how long it takes light to come out the other side, then the speed of light definitely depends on the medium.

Answer 5

The responses here are either to verbose or not quite accurate.
Light and sound are two completely separate forms of energy.
Light is electromagnetic in nature while sound is purely mechanical.
Someone else claimed a speed of sound as 344m/s but this is NOT a constant. The speed of sound is dependent on the density of the medium it moves through. The higher the density ,the faster sound moves through it. In air at sea level it is 1100 ft/s.
Light (and radio waves), travels at 300,000,000 metres/sec and this velocity is constant for any medium that light will pass through.

Answer 6

No. Sound is caused by vibration transmitted though fluids, hence no sound transmitted through vacuum. Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, but check the particulate theory of light:

Max Planck developed the Particulate Theory of Light. This theory says that light can be treated as a series of energy packets called photons. The size of the energy packets, measured as energy content, can vary and, as they do so, they change the color of the light:

This idea restricts the electron to having certain very specific quantities of energy. In other words, the electron was not allowed to have any random value of energy. The energy is said to be quantized, meaning limited to specific quantities. This idea was initially controversial, when first introduced. Eventually, it became widely accepted, and it provided Bohr with the final piece of information needed to complete his theory of basic electronic behavior.

Answer 7

Not the same.

Sound is a compression wave that requires a medium (the energy has the form of atoms pushing other atoms out of the way -- it is the energy of the "pushing away" that gets carried, not the actual atoms).

Light is an electromagnetic packet of energy. The electric field generates a magnetic field -- the magnetic field generates an electric field. The packet carries itself (it does not require a medium).

In fact, a medium may slow down the packet of light (called a photon) at it interacts with it. Light's speed will be maximum in a vacuum, where nothing gets in its way.

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The speed of light in a medium is slower than the speed of light in vacuum. That is why it is possible to see Cerenkov radiation that is emitted when particles are going faster than the local speed of light.

e.g.: photons travel only at 75% of 'c' (speed of light in a vacuum), when in water. Muons generated by cosmic rays enter a water tank faster than 90% of 'c', faster than the speed of light in the water (but not faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, therefore no 'laws' are broken); then we observe Cerenkov radiation.

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Answer 8

ChuckB has it. Sound and light are examples of waves or progression of energy. Soundwaves are small compressions in the air (or any other media) carried by the airmolecules. Lightwaves are carried by photons. Photons are composed of an electric wave and a magnetic wave. Hence "electromagentic radiation". Light and sound are vastly different but both behave like waves.

Answer 9

They are completely different things. Sound is due to the vibration of air molecules while light is produced by the electromagnetic field. Sound neads air to travel while light can move through a vacuumn. For more info, google it.

Answer 10

No they are totally separate phenomena. Maybe you're meaning radio waves which is a form of electromagnetic radiation. But it has to have a transmission source and of course a receiver for our ears to hear it.