At what speed does light and sound travel from the Sun to Earth in mph or kph?
fizzypopgirl Thurs 05/06/08 17:16
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The space between the sun and the earth is pretty much a vacuum, so light travels at c = 299,792,458 m/s, or 1,079,252,849 kph and sound doesn't travel at all.
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Just to clarify Tim123's good answer, the speed of light figure he quotes is in metres per second (I know that's what he wrote but some may have thought it meant miles per second)
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In addition to both great answers the speed in miles per second is 186,282.397 ...denoted by the symbol c...
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And I've just learned something else. Never stopped to think that sound waves needs a medium so can not travel in a vacuum.
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Wildwood .
if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound ??.
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What sound comes from the sun.....I don't hear fire crackles...I must be missing something or have gone deaf?
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but if a man voices his opinion in a forest and a woman is not around to hear it is he still wrong :)
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But if a cat is in a box with a phial of poison that can be shattered by a radioactive deacy - it it really dead?
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jake, do you think it's wise to introduce Shrodingers Cat into this, bearing in mind we are dealing with a very rudimentary question? Pehaps quantam theory may be a little OTT at this stage!
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no the cats not really dead, in it's own mind it will have achieved quantum immortality as it will only be aware of the result in the instances it survives.
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I think you need to post the thread to see the context 34 years!
Geezer had used the same terms to describe a murdered teenager who'd been selling cannabis and I replied using an analogy that I thought would have the most impact as I knew he was a biker.
Back to the question - I rather naughtily introduced the cat - in response to the Zen koan about the tree falling.
Koans (like that or what is the sound of one hand clapping)
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ctd.
Are deliberately meaningless and are aids to meditation.
My son ( a physics geek) was ridiculing them and I compared this to the famous Schroedinger's cat paradox.
He thought for a moment and said " I hate you"
So appologies to all who don't know what Shroedinger's cat is all about - don't sweat it.
But if you do and think that a tree that fall in an empty forest makes no sound just think that things are not always as obvious as they seem
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Re the tree...I think there needs to be an ear or some other type of sound wave converter nearby to turn the sound waves into sound - so if no-one is around theres no sound...... maybe.......perhaps...!!
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Waves of matter radiate out from the sun and are known as the solar wind. One could consider that this diffuse gas as a medium through which compression waves could be transmitted.
No doubt there are fluctuations in the solar wind that will lead to variations in density of the cloud of high speed particles. The presence of planets would no doubt make changes to the density distribution. These compression waves are technically a form of sound.
However the speed of this sound in the extremely diffuse medium would be slower than the windspeed.
A double sun system would produce quite strong flucuations in the solar wind.
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