describe a simple experiment to determine the speed of sound in air what approximation is made in the method described by you
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Describe a simple experiment to determine the speed of sound in air.
One method to measure the speed of sound would require two people, a large open space, a starting pistol that produces smoke instantaneously when fired, a stopwatch and a tool to measure long distances (e.g. a trundle wheel).
The two students would stand a large distance away from each other (greater than 100m), that can be measured using the trundle wheel. One student would fire the gun. The other student would start the stopwatch when they initially saw the gun fire and the smoke appear. We are making the assumption that the speed of light is instantaneous in this example. The student would stop the stopwatch when they heard the gunshot, giving them a reading for time.
As speed= distance/time, the speed of sound could be calculated using the distance between the two students. The reading on the stopwatch would be the time. Dividing the distance between the students by the time we would get an accurate estimate of the speed of sound in air. To improve the accuracy, repeat the experiment or conduct the experiment over a greater distance.