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Crazy animation shows how fast the speed of sound actually is

Home> Science> News

Published 11:52 7 Feb 2024 GMT

Crazy animation shows how fast the speed of sound actually is

The YouTube video compares it to the mindblowing speed of light.

Prudence Wade

Prudence Wade

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Featured Image Credit: Animations Xplaned/YouTube
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We all vaguely know about the speed of sound and light - but it's almost impossible to know what it actually means in reality.

Thankfully, a handy animation dives into just this, showing just how impossibly fast it all is.

The YouTube video from Animations Xplaned explains how we see light and sound together - and what their relative speeds are.

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We all know the feeling of hearing a plane in the sky, looking up at where the sound is coming from, but noticing that the plane is quite far from that point. That's because light travels more quickly than sound.

To demonstrate the speed of light, the video shows how quickly it travels from the Earth to the Moon and back - a huge distance that it absolutely zips across.

The video neatly explains that light travelling to and from the Moon is almost equal to sound moving across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - a significantly shorter distance.

It's a really neat explanation, one that works nicely to get things a little clearer to those of us who weren't blessed with a sciencey brain.

The video also shows that we can notice these discrepancies between sound and light in our daily life.

Animations Xplaned/YouTube

That plane illusion is one such moment, and if you've ever watched basketball from a bit of a distance away, you might notice that the sound of the ball bouncing isn't quite right compared to what you're seeing. That's exactly the same theory, happening at an even shorter distance.

People have been flocking to the comments with other examples of the difference between the speed of sound and light in action.

"One of my favorite examples is hearing fireworks. I find it so interesting how you can be a couple hundred feet away from a firework and you still notice a delay between the explosion and the sound," one comment read.

Another said: "One of my favourite examples is when you go to watch a live band in a large venue, and you're sitting in one of the upper levels of the venue, and you look down at the people jumping in the mosh pit. There's always a noticeable 'wave' effect as the people are jumping and the ones near the stage hear the sound before the people further away from the stage."

While a third chimed in: "For me, lightning and thunder are the perfect examples to illustrate this point."

This is down to how sensitive the human senses are - we can perceive minute differences like this surprisingly easily, just like when a movie's audio track is a microsecond out of sync and it becomes unwatchably distracting.

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