![]() Again I’ve singled out the relevant parameters in order to keep it simple. The pressure/density relationship for an ideal gas is shown in Equation 2, which holds as long as the medium’s thermodynamic properties, molecular composition and volume are unchanged. The air we use for acoustic transmission acts like an ideal gas (conveniently simplifying our equations). However, for air as a medium there’s a twist. The fact that pressure and density change with altitude leads to the common misconception that we’d need to set delays differently on Mt. We could therefore expect that density will play a significant part in the sound speed of air. And yet water is over 15,000 times less elastic (stiffer) than air, offsetting the comparatively small density increase, making the water sound speed more than four times faster than through air. Equation 1 seems to indicate that the high density should decrease the medium’s sound speed, which is quite counterintuitive. At room temperature water is over 800 times more dense than air. Notice how increasing elasticity (stiffness) accelerates sound speed (higher numbers mean less elastic and more stiff) and rising density decelerates.Ĭonsider the fact that sound travels faster through water than air.
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