Crazy animation shows how fast the speed of sound is
Rhiannon Ingle
Featured Image Credit: Youtube/Animations Xplaned
Ever wanted to visualize just how fast the speed of sound is?
Well, look no further as one animation has brilliantly compared the speed of light to the speed of sound to help any curious minds out there better understand the incredible phenomenon.
In case you needed your memory about physics jogged - the speed of sound in vacuum is widely accepted as to 331.29 metres (1,086.9 feet) per second, which is pretty darn fast.
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That colossal speed is so fast - it's almost too hard to actually comprehend in our minds so, thankfully, Animations Xplaned has taken to YouTube to come to the rescue.
In the description to the unbelievable simulation, the account notes the 'speed of light is based on observations in vacuum'.
In the clip, the narrator explains: "The speed of light is nearly instantaneous, you can tell so by turning on a light.
"Regardless of the distance between you and the light source, there is never a visible delay."
He continues: "The speed of sound, on the other hand, is far slower.
"You can experience this by being in a large open area, where you can hear the delay of your echo bouncing off distant rocks before it travels back to you."
So, when light and sound are being perceived together, this discrepancy in speeds can 'deceive' you.
"An example of this is when you're trying to locate a plane in the sky from its sound, only to realize it's far ahead of where it sounds like it is," he goes on.
In order to visualize the speed of sound, the narrator explains that he needs to use the example of something 'considerably large' like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, which has a span between both towers of 12,180 meters.
The narrator goes on: "This is a great distance to see how quickly sound can get from one side to the other."
He then uses a bullet to represent the speed of sound because 'some nine millimeter bullets travel at the speed of sound', which is '343 meters every second'.
"If I shot a bullet from one tower to the other, it would reach the second tower in 3.7 seconds," the YouTuber explains.
But, for the speed of light, however, we'd need 'an object so large that we will need the whole planet'.
"The Earth's circumference is 40,075 kilometers at its equator," the man says, before adding: "This is nothing for the speed of light as it is able to circle the Earth seven and a half times every second."
The video then zooms out to show the speed of light traveling between the Earth and the moon.
"The moon is 384,400 kilometers away, it takes the speed of light only 1.28 seconds," he reveals.
"If a light source was heading to the sun, the sun being 147,450,000 kilometers away, it would take light eight minutes and 20 seconds one way."
So, next time you're perceiving both light and sound together - just remember that in the time it takes sound to travel from one tower on the Golden Gate Bridge to the other, light can travel to the moon back to Earth and to the Moon once again.
Guess you really do learn something new everyday.