Question

The time elapsed between viewing a lighting flash hearing the thunder of a cloud is 10s if the speeds of sound and light in air 330 m/s and 3x10 8 m/s respectively, how far away Is the storm.​

Answer 1

Given:

The time elapsed between viewing a lighting flash hearing the thunder of a cloud is 10s if the speeds of sound and light in air 330 m/s and 3x10⁸ m/s.

To find:

Distance of storm from observer?

Calculation:

• The observer is seeing the flash of light 10 seconds after hearing the thunder.

• This means that the light travelled for 10 seconds from the origin of the storm before it reached the observer.

$\therefore \: d = v_{light} \times t$

$\implies d = (3 \times {10}^{8} ) \times 10$

$\implies d = 3 \times {10}^{9} \: m$

$\implies d = 3 \times {10}^{6} \: km$

So, storm is 3 × 10⁶ km away from observer.