[Daniiel]

hahahah
One of my friends has the Audio book of it so i might try get my hands on it.
I dont think audio books are the same as reading though.
I have a question about sound.
I know it vibrates air molecules but what is it on a lower scale?
Have we figured it out yet?
I could only find things about how it vibrates air to travel to our ears and so on.
That would mean sound cant travel through space right ?
Do you guys know anything about it?

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All I can remember about sound is that it travels in waves. I remember the doppler effect too.

[sarahw]

All I can remember about sound is that it travels in waves. I remember the doppler effect too.

[Daniiel]

Doppler effect?

[sarahw]

When a train or car goes past you the sound of it changes as it grows closer then passes you due to the sound waves being compressed. It's relative to the observer. To you the sounds pitch changes, to a passenger it doesn't.

[sarahw]

[Daniiel]

ohhh okay
thats not hard to understand
i thought itd be a massive confusing thing

[sarahw]

i thought itd be a massive confusing thing

I'm sure it could be.

[Daniiel]

Yehh i guess everything can be complicated
thanks for your help though.
What do you think sound is?
Like on a subatomic level

[sarahw]

Atomic vibrations are called phonons. Like Photons carrying light, they transmit sound which you can hear when intervening subsance is disturbed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonons

[Daniiel]

ohhh
thanks
ive been wondering about it for the past few days.
i still kinda am
but itll go away

[warriorscot]

Phonons are for solids since sound is perceived by us through a gaseous or liquid medium they dont apply in the case of normal everyday sounds, we produce sounds in a different way. We create sound through oscillating vocal cords kind of like a wind instrument but more complex the movement of air over the cords and the restrictions and contractions cause increase or decrease in frequency and wavelength. The wikipedia article on sound explains it all pretty thoroughly any specific questions i either know the answer or can get it, also if you are interested go and pick up a text book if youre interested in the subject they can be quite pleasurable to read.

There is no sound in space(not audio sound depends on what you mean by sound) as space for a large part is a vacum there is nothing for sound to be transmitted as sound is reliant upon a medium and cannot exist without one its medium being matter of some sort.

Which one of Einsteins books did you read, i found his first quite heavy going but i read it a long time ago now, his second was apparently more along the lines of the way Stephen hawking writes more for the populace his first was more for physicists and the like although he was really one of the first to write a popularist physics book before that books on science were always rather dull and unless a scientist largely unintelligible, he did great things for science.

[Daniiel]

Sorry i clicked add reply twice
you can delete this post

Edited by Daniiel, 23 January 2007 - 05:32 PM.

[Daniiel]

Say you where an astronaught floating in space, and a massvie shuttle flew past.
You wouldnt hear anything?
what about radio waves they can be sent through space, dont they need some kind of matter to move through?

[Michael]

You would not hear a thing.

Sound waves are caused by vibrations in the particles (such as air). Electromagnetic radiation(radio, microwaves, light, ultra-violet, x-rays ect.) on the other hard are energy, not the movement of particles. Just a light can get here from the sun, so can radio waves.

And yes to every one else, I know about photons and all the theories about them. I am just trying to give a simple answer.

You might like to read http://en.wikipedia....omagnetic_waves

Edited by Michael, 24 January 2007 - 12:14 AM.

[Daniiel]

hahah, thanks for breaking it down