Question

A physicist at a fireworks display × the lag between seeing an explosion and hearing its sound. She finds it to be 0.315 s. What is the approximate distance between the physicist and the explosion if the speed of sound in air is approximately 343 m/s?

Answer 1

To calculate the distance based on the time lag, multiply the speed of sound (343 m/s) by the time lag (0.315 s), which yields approximately 108.045 m as the distance.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student is asking how to calculate the distance from a source of sound, such as a fireworks explosion, based on the time lag between seeing the explosion and hearing it. Given the speed of sound in air at 343 m/s and a time lag of 0.315 seconds, the calculation to determine the distance (D) would be:

D = speed of sound × time lag
D = 343 m/s × 0.315 s

By performing the multiplication, you find that the distance between the physicist and the explosion is approximately:

D = 108.045 m

This assumes that the time taken for light to reach the physicist is negligible, as light's speed (approximately 300,000 km/s) is so much greater than the speed of sound.