Question

Describe an experiment to find the speed of sound in air.

Answer 1

You can perform so many experiments to find the speed of sound in the air.
One of the simple experiments is as follows:

1. For this experiment, you need a cracker, stopwatch, meter tape, and the help of one of your friends.
2. Choose two spots. Tell your friend to stand at one of the spots with the cracker and pick the other spot for yourself at a distance of 300 m from the first spot such that you can see the cracker. Performing the experiment is dusk will help you to view the cracking of the cracker easily.
3. The distance should be measured accurately by using meter tape.
4. Now signal your friend to burn the cracker.
5. Once you see the flash of the explosion of a cracker, start the stopwatch.
6. Once you hear the sound of the explosion of a cracker, stop the stopwatch.
7. Now you have the time taken by sound to cover 300 m.
8. So the velocity of sound will be simply distance divided by time.
   $Speed=\frac{Dis\tan ce}{Time}$
9. Perform this experiment a few more times to get better results.