How does sound travel from one place to another?

Question

How does sound travel from one place to another?

Answer 1

Sound is nothing but vibrations; mechanical vibrations. When you beat a drum, you are imparting mechanical energy in the form of machanical 'impact'. The membrane of the drum being so designed, that it picks up certain vibration modes to which it is tuned. Reverberations thus are conveyed to air molecules that are in constant contact with the drum membrane. So, obiously if you beat the same drum in outer space there wouldn't be 'sound' produced as there are zero number of air molecules.

These air molecules (the air) while vibrating about their mean positions being constrained by other air molecules around impart their vibrational energy to the next ones. The process continues till all the air around participates in the transmission of 'acoustic' (yeah! that's the right word) energy. When this air in contact with Tympanic membrane (ear-drum) within inner ear of a human (like you) that membrane too vibrates 'sympathetically' (well, this word needs lot of explanation and mathematics). The rest of it is phisiological-physical that leads to the sensation of 'hearing' and sound. God has endowed us mammals and many other living beings to take advantage of facts on Earth, like atmosphere-air in creation, that may not be available a hundred kilometers above.

How does sound travel?

Air molecules which are so dense spread this energy as I told you. They convey their velocities outward from source if they are vibrating on a 'longitudinal' mode or oscillate sideways to direction of propagation if they are in 'transverse' mode. That is decided by the modes of vibration of the source (in this case the membrane of drum). It is observed that the speed with which this acoustical disturbance (or else the air molecules will have their velocities in an equilibrium mode comfortably) spreads is 330 m/sec under familiar conditions that we take for granted. It also propagates through liquids like water at higher velocities and in solids too! In solids such vibrational energy is ever present in the form of 'phonons'. But for that the solids must have a nearly crystalline lattice structure or arranged in some way that adjacent particles or molecules are able to convey phonons. In dielectric (non-conducting) media and mixtures (not compounds) this phenomenon of acoustic transmission becomes less and less.

Answer 2

sound travels through the air by way of waves. these waves are air molecules being vibrated and acting upon other air molecules. in space you can't hear sounds, because there is no air molecules to vibrate.

Answer 3

  It travels through solids,gas and liquid by pressure waves,by one molecule pushing the molecule ahead in unison.

Answer 4

Sound travels through a medium(ex. air) which means that sound cannot be transferred in space because there's no medium/air. The air carries the sound produced by vibration from the sender to the receiver.

Answer 5

sound travels in the form of sound waves

Answer 6

Sound is a shock wave through the air.  The air is made out of atoms that repel one another, but are held together by air pressure, which in turn is caused by earth's gravity.  When something happens, such as a tree falling in the forest, energy is delivered in an explosive manner into all surrounding material including the air.  Atoms in the air bump against each other, imparting that energy to other atoms which also bump against their neighboring atoms.  The overall effect is a shock wave which travels through the air, which our ears have developed sensitivity to because of evolution.

Answer 7

You're familiar with that desk gizmo that has several steel balls hanging on wires all in a row (It's called a Newton's Cradle, by the way)? It's that thing where you raise the ball at one end and drop it, and it swings down, hits the chain of balls, and the ball on the opposite end swings up in stead, and it goes back and forth click click click click.....

Sound is very much like that. Each ball transfers its motion into the neighboring ball, which hits the next, etc etc.... Except in stead of metal balls, it's atoms and molecules bumping into each other. Sound is a vibration, so the collisions are happening over and over and over very quickly - the faster the vibration, the higher the pitch of the sound.