Question

Two friends are walking by a cliff face when they notice their voices echo. One friend says to the other It is 50 metres to that cliff. I can find out the speed of sound using this echo! The first friend claps and listens for the echo. Then they keep clapping exactly in time with the echoes from the cliff. The second friend times how long it takes for the first friend to clap like this thirty times. It takes them nine seconds to clap thirty times in time with the echoes. Using their experiment and their data, calculate the speed of sound in air. Write a simple method for scientifically finding the speed of sound in this way.

a) 300 m/s
b) 330 m/s
c) 340 m/s
d) 360 m/s

Answer 1

To calculate the speed of sound using the experiment conducted by the two friends, we divide the distance to the cliff by the time it took for the sound to travel. The correct speed of sound in this case is 11.11 m/s.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the speed of sound using the experiment conducted by the two friends, we need to consider the time it takes for the sound to travel to the cliff and back as well as the distance to the cliff. From the given data, it took the first friend 9 seconds to clap thirty times in time with the echoes. This means that it took the sound 4.5 seconds to travel to the cliff and back. Since the distance to the cliff is 50 meters, we can calculate the speed of sound by dividing the distance by the time it took for the sound to travel. Therefore, the speed of sound in air is:

Speed of sound = Distance / Time = 50 meters / 4.5 seconds = 11.11 meters/second

Therefore, none of the options given (a) 300 m/s, (b) 330 m/s, (c) 340 m/s, (d) 360 m/s) are correct. The correct speed of sound in this case is 11.11 m/s.