Considering energy can neither be created nor be destroyed and can only be converted from one form into other, what is sound energy converted into?
In: Physics
As basically all energy does, it heats up the environment. Continually furthering the slow heat death of the universe
Like other energy such as heat from a fire, It radiates into space and is “lost” — no longer able to do useful work. Eventually, this is theorized to happen with all energy, and the universe will end.
The energy is absorbed by various materials and converted (often after several steps) into heat.
Let’s take one of the simplest examples, water vibrating from sound. The energy from the sound is transferred into the water causing it to vibrate and move. Once the source of the sound is removed, the water is slowed down to a stop via various forms of friction (rubbing against the walls, rubbing against the air, rubbing against itself). Friction is inherently the process of converting kinetic energy into heat and the same applies here. So sound (which is just a form of kinetic energy) is transferred into the water, it then transfers it via friction into other items thereby heating them up (slightly).
It’s the same for sound fading in the air (mostly friction between the air and itself) or being absorbed into objects (trees, grass, the stupid sound dampening ceiling tiles etc). The energy is slowly transferred into various objects over time and eventually it slowly converts into heat via friction with and from all of those things.
Heat. Sound is organized wavy physical movement of particles. Heat is disorganized random physical movement of particles. They’re already really pretty similar!
There’s not that much actual energy in normal amounts of sound, but there’s some. It all ends up as a small amount of heat. Here’s a calculation for [heating up a cup of coffee purely by screaming at it.](https://futurism.com/heating-coffee-by-screaming-2)
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