Do quieter sounds travel at the same speed but for less distance?
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Sound travels at a certain speed because that’s how fast air molecules bump into each other to keep the chain reaction going. Imagine air molecules are a bunch of beach balls floating around in a large room. Then suddenly move one of the walls of the room inwards. The wall will smack into a bunch of the beach balls, and those balls will smack into more balls, etc. You’ll see a “wave” propagate through the beach balls. The speed of that wave is the speed of sound.
In fact, sound travels at a lot of different speeds. It travels at a slightly different speed when you get higher in altitude (because air pressure decreases), and it travels at a slightly different speed when the weather is hot vs when it’s cold, or humid vs dry. The “official” speed of sound is just the speed at sea level at a certain temperature and humidity, but otherwise the speed varies with changes in temperature, pressure, humidity, and other variables.
Also, sound travels different speeds in different mediums. For instance, it travels waaaay faster in water than in air, and even faster through solid objects.
The volume of a sound has nothing to do with it’s speed. Volume is more about how large of a change in air pressure is created by the sound. If it creates a bigger change in air pressure, it’s louder. But otherwise, the sound propagates at the same speed.
By definition, all sound travels at the speed of sound.
Quiet sounds and loud sounds travel at the same speed and more or less just as far. The further one gets from the source, the lower the volume / amplitude. Eventually, there’s a point far enough from the source where the volume is reduced to a level where it cannot be measured because it’s small in comparison to other sounds. A louder sound will be detectable over a larger distance.
The one word answer is no. The once sentence answer is that “speed of sound” is not a question you can ask without adding a lot more stuff. Unlike with light, there is no concept of speed of sound absent context.
The speed of sound depends on the temperature, density and type of material the wave is propagating in. Temperature is more than a simple variable. The equations for determining the speed of sound in solids, gases and liquids are completely different.
It’s not even as simple as asking questions like “what is the speed of sound in liquid water?” Calculations for the speed of sound in the ocean depend on temperature, depth and even salinity.
Additionally, similar to how a glass prism can break up light, material can alter the sound of some frequencies differently than others. Speed of sound will also vary by frequency with higher frequencies traveling faster.
Different frequencies can even behave differently in the same medium. Imagine the sound of loud music in the room next door. In this case, higher frequencies are being reflected by the wall while while lower frequencies will pass through the wall so you only hear the deep rumbles.
If that’s not complicated enough, the speed of sound also depends on the type of wave. Pressure and transverse waves behave differently.
This is such a complex topic that the formulas used will always ignore factors that are not likely to be important for the calculation. For example, you can find formulas that will determine the speed of sound in air depending on temperature. But that’s incomplete. Other factors, such as humidity and altitude will also affect the speed of sound in air.
also… you are specifically referring to sound in air. it goes different speeds through different things… like Water vs Air
Yes, all sounds travel at the speed of sound.
The amplitude (soft/loud) and frequency (high/low tone) don’t matter. They influence the amount of energy the soundwave has, but not the speed at which this soundwave propagates.
However, that speed of sound is not fixed, just as the speed of light is not fixed. It is highly dependant on the medium it travels through.
Sound will move more quickly in solid objects than in water or air. Even in air, the speed of sound depends on temperature, barometric pressure, etc…
And just as an additional fact: The wavelength of a frequency is dependant on the speed of the wave, so the same frequency sound can have (slightly) different wavelengths when the air pressure changes.
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