Why is water said to be “incompressible” when sound can travel through it? Doesn’t sound imply compressions and rarefactions?
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Solid steel is also considered “incompressible” and sound travels through it.
At the atomic level where such generalizations fall apart, everything is compressible because there’s no such thing as infinite stiffness. Every nonzero force has nonzero stress– it’s just a question of magnitude.
Source: I work in engineering extremely high pressure fluid systems that operate at pressures up to 3000 bar in some cases. That’s well over triple the pressure at the bottom of the deepest point of the ocean (Challenger Deep). So imagine the pressure on your body from nearly 6 miles of water above you, then triple that. At these pressures EVERYTHING is compressible. Even the steel pressure vessels behave more like they are rubber hoses with significant stretching and contraction with pressure cycles.
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