Question

You are sailing on the ocean near a cliff, and sound an air horn at the cliff. If sound travels at 340.0 m/s through the air between you and the cliff, how far away is the cliff if when timed it takes you 6.00 seconds to hear the echo?

Answer 1

To calculate the distance to the cliff, you can use the equation distance = speed x time. In this case, the cliff is located 1020.0 meters away.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the distance to the cliff, we need to consider the time it takes for the sound to reach the cliff and then for the echo to travel back to you. As sound travels at 340.0 m/s, it will take a certain amount of time for the sound to travel to and from the cliff. In this case, it takes 6.00 seconds for you to hear the echo, so we can divide this time by 2 to get the time it takes for the sound to travel to the cliff and back. Therefore, the total round trip time is 3.00 seconds. Now, using the equation speed = distance/time, we can rearrange the equation to solve for the distance: distance = speed x time. Plugging in the speed of sound and the time it takes for the sound to travel to and from the cliff, we get distance = 340.0 m/s x 3.00 s = 1020.0 m. Therefore, the cliff is located 1020.0 meters away from where you are sailing.