• Question: What is faster ; the speed of light or the speed of sound?

    Asked by anon-239893 to Struan on 9 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Struan Simpson

      Struan Simpson answered on 9 Mar 2020:

      Light would almost always be faster! Generally the speed of something depends on what it’s travelling through, but I think in most (if not, all!) cases light would travel faster than sound. In air, sound travels at about 300 metres per second, whereas light travels at about 300 MILLION metres per second. This is why, for example, you see lightning before you hear thunder!

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