Dose sound travel better through a solid a liquid or a gas?

Answer 1

like with many scientific problems, you have to be careful how you ask the question! What do you mean by 'best'? Fastest? Farthest? Loudest?

I'll assume you meant fastest. The speed of sound depends on both the density and the elasticity of the medium it's travelling through. Sounds travels in waves of compression and rarity, so it's fastest in solids because the molecules are packed together more tightly. Sound is next fastest in liquids, again for the same reason. It's slowest in a gas. And, in a gas, the temperature is particularly important--the faster the molecules are moving from heat, the more sound energy they can transfer to their neighbors.

As far as distance travelled --- again, solids and liquids win. However, ther's an additional factor called 'damping' that depends on the elesticity of the medium the sounds waves are travelling through, also scattering. It ends up that lower-frequency sound waves can travel much longer distances than high frequency sounds....this is how whales can communicate over long distances in the ocean--and how elephants do the same in air. Both do their 'long distance' calling with low frequencies