How Fast Can Sound Be?

Light moves at a blistering speed of more than 300,000 kilometers per hour through vacuum. And that’s as fast as anything can go. But it seems that speed has a maximum speed as well.

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Sound or light waves move through space and transfer energy from one place to another. Sound waves can move through many environments such as air or water. And based on the environment the speed of sound changes as well. For example, sound passes through solids faster than liquids and gases.

Einstein’s special theory of relativity brought an absolute limit for the speed of light. But until today, we haven’t known if there is such a limit for the speed of sound. But now, a research led by Kastya Trachenko from the Queen Mary University of London. The researchers think that the fastest possible speed of sound is roughly 36 kilometers per second. That is roughly twice of the speed of sound in a diamond.

According to Trachenko and his colleagues say the upper limit of the speed of sound is tightly linked to two non-dimensional basic physical constants. First, it is the constant that describes the strength of electromagnetic interaction and the constant of ratio between the mass of the proton and electron. And these aren’t some ordinary constants. We already knew that both of these constants play a major role in how the Universe works.

The researchers tested their theoretical prediction in several different materials. Most importantly, they tested their prediction that the speed of sound decreases with the larger mass of atoms in a given material. This sound mean that speed is the fastest in solid atomic hydrogen. While such hydrogen only exists in an environment with a pressure of roughly 1 million atmospheres – like inside the center of a gas giant such a Jupiter so we can’t test it in an experiment but we can use theories. So they used advanced quantum mechanics equations and found that the speed of sound in such a material really comes close to the limit they predicted.

While this research might seem not to have many practical applications it will find some uses. The research of how sound waves move through solid materials is quite important for many different fields. For example, seismologists closely observe sound-waves as they move through our planet or material scientists use them to analyze the properties of the materials they create.

Sources:

• https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/41/eabc8662

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