Sunday, June 30, 2013

Light verses Sound


Have you ever tried to figure out the distance of a lighting strike by listening for its thunder? I used to do that all the time. Though, because of everything that I’ve learned over the past year, a thought occurred to me. Does the counting the seconds method work for all weather conditions? No matter what, I believe light travels at a constant rate. It also isn’t reliant on the molecules around it to travel any amount of distance.  Sound waves, on the other hand need some kind of medium to travel through. That’s why we see the stars in the sky but no one can hear you scream in space. Because of the way sound works, I wonder how much of a difference the air properties have on the distance of lightning. 

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