How fast does sound actually travel?

1sound wave

Sound is not instant — it's a wave of squeezed and stretched air, and it takes real time to travel.

2343 m/s

In dry air at room temperature, sound travels about three hundred forty three meters per second — that's over a thousand kilometers an hour.

3heat speeds it

Heat the air up and molecules jiggle faster, bumping their neighbors sooner — so sound actually speeds up as temperature rises.

4through matter

Sound needs a medium to push through — and denser, stiffer stuff passes the jostle along faster than air ever can.

5lightning & thunder

Here's the fun proof: light is basically instant, but sound crawls — so count the seconds between a lightning flash and its thunder.

6count the gap

Sound covers roughly one kilometer every three seconds — so count five seconds, and the storm is about one mile away.