Question

Sound produced by a thunderstorm is heard 10s after the lightning is seen. calculate the distance of the thunder cloud

Answer 1

Lightning reaches the observer with a very large speed, i.e., with the speed of light (3 x 108 m/s).Thus,the entire time of 10 s between the seeing of lightning and hearing of thunderstorm is taken by the sound to travel to the observer.Hence,distance of the thunder cloud i.e. s = vt = (340 m/s) (10 s) = 3400 m = 3.4 km.

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