How is it that sound travels the slowest in gas (which is all around us) but when we’re underwater we can’t hear much of anything coming from the surface?

Question

I mean, shouldn’t we be hearing things coming from the surface when we’re underwater, since the wave just caused the molecules which are closer together in liquid than in gas to hit eachother?

In: Physics

Answer 1

When waves hit an area of different density, they will react. Water is much more denser than air. When waves travel through air and hit water, most of it bounces away, and what’s left, the waves that actually go into the water, have very weak energy, and as the wave travels through more water, it loses a lot of energy.