4 ms·
(sound is very slow when passing through mercury) From your link: “The high speed of sound in mercury (1450 m/s) meant that the time needed to wait for a puls
by jonsen 8y ago
(sound is very slow when passing through mercury)
From your link:
“The high speed of sound in mercury (1450 m/s) meant that the time needed to wait for a pulse to arrive at the receiving end was less than it would have been with a slower medium, such as air (343.2 m/s)...”
The reason for using mercury:
“Mercury was used because its acoustic impedance is close to that of the piezoelectric quartz crystals; this minimized the energy loss and the echoes when the signal was transmitted from crystal to medium and back again.”
- MichaelMoser123 8y agoyeah, the speed of sound in mercury is not that slow. Never trust anything you hear on youtube. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-liquids-d_715.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-liquids-d_715...
- majewsky 8y agoIt makes intuitive sense, too. For sound to travel through a medium, the constituent particles have to interact with their neighbors to keep the sound wave moving. In a liquid, the particles are much closer to their neighbors (on average) than in a gas at normal pressures. Because of this stronger coupling, the average liquid (or solid) should have a much higher speed of sound than the average gas.