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Sound travels approximately 335 meters per second. The speed of sound through steel is about 5030 meters per second. When Jackson presses his ear against a steel beam, he hears a high-pitched ring six seconds before hearing the same ring through the air. How far away is the source of that ringing?

User Feuyeux
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1 Answer

3 votes

Answer:

2153 meters

Explanation:

You want to know the distance to a source of sound if it is heard through a medium with a speed of sound of 5030 m/s 6 seconds before it is heard through a medium with a speed of sound of 335 m/s.

Time

The relation between time, speed, and distance is ...

time = distance/speed

For some distance d in meters, the two times are d/335 seconds and d/5030 seconds. The time difference is 6 seconds, so we have ...

d/335 -d/5030 = 6

Multiplying by 337010, we have ...

1006d -67d = 2022060

939d = 2022060 . . . . . simplify

d ≈ 2153.42 . . . . . meters

The source of sound is about 2153 meters away.

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Additional comment

The distance might rightly be rounded to 2150 meters, since the given numbers are 3 significant figures each.

User Vmkcom
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