Thanks for the answers guys, but I still don’t really understand how sound can go at the speed of light, and IMO I think it took a lot longer than we think.
Don’t believe me? Imagine we have no advanced tech that we have today, and across world voice calls don’t exist. Imagine how fucking difficult it would be to make the sound of your voice go at light speed across Earth.
For example imagine you’re at a park with your friend and across world vc’s don’t exist. You’re speaking to each other through the pipe with the two cups at each end, and you want to invent a way to communicate across the world
The fact they did it is awesome. It sounds impossible. And at the time I have no doubt the majority of the world thought it was impossible. But we always think it’s impossible, until it’s invented.
OP below
I always thought that the sound travels at the speed of light but then it hit me that it’s not light, it’s sound, so I had to post this.
OP above
Edit: It’s technically still sound though right? Just converted into something else.
Just because it’s converted into a different form doesn’t mean it’s not sound. It’s just sound in a different form, or it wouldn’t be sound at the other end.
Who was the first person to convert sound to the speed of light?
Edit2: I still think there’s something you’re not telling me guys 🤔😂
Edit3: to the few haters who downvoted my reply to the comment when I said ‘no shit’ when someone compared this to paper travelling at the speed of light, get a brain. Sound doesn’t weigh anything.
Edit4: u/mitchrsmert fr? If sound has mass how can it travel at the speed of light?
In: 627
Sound is a bunch of waves moving through a gas (like the atmosphere) or a liquid (like water) or even solid objects like rocks (how earthquakes get detected). It’s speed can change depending on what it’s moving through.
When you speak into your phone though you’re actually making what would looks like a tiny speaker move back and forth matched to the vibrations of your sound waves. A copper wire is wrapped around that moving speaker, and a magnet is wrapped around that whole thing. This lets those back and forth vibrations convert into electrical waves, as just simple electricity. Now you send that over wires or fiber optics anywhere in the world. Even wirelessly into space or from your phone to a cell tower. On the receiving end is an actual speaker, just like the one you spoke into (the microphone). The electrical waves make the magnet move the copper coiled wire which moves the speaker in the same vibration pattern your voice made into the microphone. Which let’s it reproduce the sound on that end, just as you spoke it.
It’s not instant, but it’s fairly close. Fiber optics would be the quickest, since that’s visible light in the cable. Electricity would be second, and you have to account for the time it takes the microphone and speaker to physically move. If sending wirelessly then it’s turned into radio waves, which is the signal your phone gets from the towers sending them. Your phone connects to a tower, sends/receives the signal, from the tower it goes into wires buried underground and through the oceans. Until it reaches the receiving tower and goes back into radio waves to connect to the other phone you’re talking to. Similar situation for your internet access. There are literally fiber optic cables that physically run around the entire globe, connecting almost every continent together.
Also the way we figured how to do all of this was by starting out with just using electrical signals. Morse code being sent through a telegraph. It’s literally just on or off, open the circuit or close the circuit. How long or short you keep that circuit open it closed gets translated to a letter. String a combination of those open or closed codes together and you can spell words. The invention of the speaker diaphragm (the part moving in and out with the copper wrapped around it and a magnet around that) is what let use upgrade that same system to then make sounds instead of just an on or off code.
Also in general this concept is how all sound producing devices work. Speakers, headphones, etc. The only difference being that the audio got recorded and saved somewhere first, and then played back at a later time.
All of this works because both sound and electricity are in the form of waves. That’s how you can convert between the two. You just make one mimic the other.
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