![]() ![]() 30 to correct the article's explanation of how vocal cords and the voice box produce sound.Waves appear in many different forms. "The effects would just be extraordinary," Gollin said.Įditor's note: Updated at 2:09 p.m. It would blast through every particle it encountered, sending electrons flying and producing a "spray" of matter and antimatter - particles generated in ultra-high speed collisions that have properties opposite to those of matter. A molecule traveling at the speed of light would have "nearly infinite energy," Gollin said. ![]() Light travels in electromagnetic waves, which aren't composed of matter, but sound waves are mechanical - composed of particles colliding into one another. Even the soft whistle of a flute would blast anything in its vicinity to smithereens. If there were a time warp, how would physicists find it?Īlas, humans wouldn't survive to experience these spectacular changes. What would it be like to travel faster than the speed of light? (A change in the speed of sound as it moves through air wouldn't change the speed of sound along a string, he added.) We would have to design wind instruments to be a million times longer to keep them in tune with the violins and cellos, Robertson said. Because higher frequency means higher pitch, wind instruments would produce sounds so high in pitch, they'd be impossible for humans to hear. Similarly, when the sound waves produced by wind instruments increase in speed, they increase in frequency. As the ropes are shaken faster and faster, the number of waves - in other words, their frequency - increases. When a weight-lifter shakes them fast enough, waves begin oscillating up and down without appearing to travel across the rope. These standing waves behave like those heavy ropes you see tethered to the wall at the gym. When sound moves back and forth inside the cavity of an oboe or a trumpet, it produces a standing wave. ![]() "And we're talking about making the speed of sound a million times bigger," Robertson said.Īnd if the speed of sound were to suddenly speed up, it would wreak havoc on orchestras, Robertson said. That's because sound waves move three times faster through helium, said William Robertson, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Middle Tennessee State University. To get a sense of what we'd sound like in a universe where the speed of sound moved ultra-fast, imagine how you sound when you take a deep breath out of a helium balloon - like Mickey Mouse. In sound waves, frequency translates to pitch, so what you get is a very odd sounding voice. If the sound moved faster in air, it would change the way waves added together, making certain frequencies louder and others quieter. Some sync up perfectly, while others actually interfere with one another, producing a smaller wave and a quieter sound. However, not all frequencies add together in the same way. There, waves of the same frequency add together to produce much bigger waves - which translates to louder sound. When we speak, our vocal cords vibrate to produce sound waves of many different frequencies, pumping them into the larynx, or voice box. Voices would sound particularly strange, Gollin said. An ultra-fast speed of sound would completely change the way our world sounds. ![]()
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