1 Physics -- Mechanical Waves

The speed of light does not depend upon the temperature of air but the speed of sound depends on it. Why?

The speed of light does not depend upon the temperature of air but the speed of sound depends on it. Why?

Well, the propagation of light is fundamentally due to oscillation of electric field and magnetic field perpendicularly, which allows the light waves to propagate in the direction perpendicular to both the existing fields, i.e. light waves propagation solely depends on these fields.

But, sound waves are non other than the transference of energy due to disturbance, as well the propagation of sound wave has already been found to be adiabatic in nature, and through the adiabatic equation, velocity of sound wave is directly proportional to square root of absolute temperature.

As we know that wave of sound is a mechanical wave and its speed is given by

v = √(γRT/M)

whereas the wave of light is an electromagnetic wave and its speed is given by

c = √(1/εoμo

So speed of sound depends on temperature of air but speed of light doesn't.

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