Why is water said to be “incompressible” when sound can travel through it? Doesn’t sound imply compressions and rarefactions?
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Imagine an “incompressible” steel rod. Hold one end of it, and consider someone pushing it at the other end, the pressure of them pushing it is transferred to your hand. Now imagine someone pushing and pulling that steel rod … you are still feeling the push and pull of the rod, right? In fact denser mediums transmit sound faster because there is less energy wasted compressing empty space. In a vacuum, there is nothing to compress at all so no sound can travel.
The thing is that whatever is observing the sound is NOT incompressible. So say you are under water and someone drops a rock onto another rock, the compression from the shock of the impact travels through the water and compresses your eardrum so you hear it.
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