What is the difference of speed of sound and speed of light?

Answer 1

The Basic difference between the sound waves and light is in their wave nature. Light waves are propagated as transverse waves. Sound waves are propagated as longitudinal waves.

Let's do our own version of Einstein's famous thought experiments. You are on a train that has a very looong connected flatbed. I'm observing you from the ground. The train is moving at 60 mph to my right; you are in a car and driving from the front of the train toward the back, and you read 40 mph on your speedometer. As the amazing sight passes by, I measure your speed to be 20 mph, moving to my right-- from my frame of reference, your back-end is advancing. This is an entertaining if impractical way of seeing how two velocities differ. Sixty minus forty equals twenty.

Now we are together on the ground. A train is going to pass us at the speed of sound (ok, we could make it an SST and pretend we're on a REALITY show). As it passes, our job is to measure the velocity of light coming toward us from a powerful source on its back. We are, in theory, slowing light down by the speed of sound. When we measure the velocity of the light, however, we will find that it is still exactly the speed of light, undiminished. If we forgot our protective gear, however, our ears will not be unchanged.

Answer 2

Speed is the rate of change of distance with time.

Velocity is a measure of both speed and direction of a moving object.

Velocity is the rate of change of displacement with time.

Speed is a distance an object goes, velocity is measurment of speed AND direction.

Answer 3

speed of sound: how fast sound travels speed of light: how fast light travels The speed of sound is much slower than light - about 1 million times slower. Light travels at 3 x 10^8 m/s, while sound travels at 330m/sec.

Answer 4

The ratio between the two is around 1 : 1 million. The speed of light in a vacuum is 300 million meters/second. The speed of sound in a vacuum doesn't make sense; the actual speed of sound depends on the substance used to transmit the sound. A typical value for the speed of sound in air is about 330 meters/second, but the speed of sound in other substances can be quite different.

Answer 5

In air at sea level, the difference is about 299,522,544 meters per second.
(The light is faster.)

In vacuum, the speed of sound is zero, so the difference is the entire speed of light.

Answer 6

The speed of light in vacuum is roughly 874,000 timesthe speed of sound at sea level.

Putting it the other way...

The speed of sound at sea level is about 0.0000011 times the speed of light in vacuum.

Answer 7

The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s whereas the speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 m/s.

Which makes a difference of 299,792,117.71 m/s

Answer 8

The difference is huge. The speed of sound in air at 20 degrees Celsius is 343 meters per second. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299 792 458 meters per second.

Answer 9

The differwnce is the speed of sound is about 768mph while the speed of light is over a billion mph

Answer 10

340 meters/second vs 300 million meters/second