Speed of sound

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/speed-of-sound

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the speed of sound?The speed of sound is how fast sound waves move through a material. It depends on how stiff and how heavy the material is. Sound goes fastest in solids, slower in liquids, and slowest in gases.
2. Why does sound travel faster in steel than in air?Steel is very stiff and not very heavy, so sound waves bounce quickly between its tightly packed particles. Air has more spread out particles, so sound moves slower.

Compressions and Rarefactions: Regions of high and low pressure, respectively, that constitute a sound wave.
Bulk Modulus: A measure of a fluid's resistance to uniform compression.
Adiabatic Process: A process where no heat is exchanged with the surroundings, characteristic of rapid sound wave propagation.