How are voice calls across the world instant and how do they work? How can sound travel millions of times faster than the speed of sound?

Question

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

Answer 1

Your voice creates vibrations in the air.
these vibrations are picked up by the microphone.
Then microphone/mobile technical wizardry converts the sound into a microwave signal (light) which bounces around a few satellites to get around the world.
This microwave signal reaches the other phone and the process happens in reverse to get the sound back.

Light travels roughly at 300 million metres/second so it appears instantaneous.

If you were trying to chat to someone on the moon there would be a couple seconds delay because of the distances between the two.