The fastest speed of sound discovered by scientists

Research from the collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, University of Cambridge is Institute of High Pressure Physics in Troitsk found the fastest speed of sound with which it travels and reaches the listener’s ears. The results concluded that the speed could reach around 36km per second, or around twice as fast as the speed of sound found in diamond, the hardest material in the world. Waves, like sound or light waves, are disturbances that transfer energy from one place to another when it can reach it. Sound waves can travel through different media, such as air or water, and travel at different speeds depending on what they are going through. For example, they move through solids much faster than through liquids or gases, which is why you can hear trains approaching faster if you listen to sounds traveling along the tracks rather than through the air.

Einstein’s special theory of relativity also establishes a limit on the absolute speed at which waves can travel which is the speed of light, and is equal to about 300,000 km per second. However, it is not yet known whether sound waves also have the highest speed limit when moving through solid or liquid objects. Study published in the journal Scientific advances, shows that the prediction of an upper limit on the speed of sound depends on two dimensionless fundamental constants: the fine structure constant and the proton-electron mass ratio according to the laws of physics.

Both of these numbers are known to play an important role in understanding our universe. Their carefully tuned values ​​govern nuclear reactions such as proton decay and nuclear synthesis in stars, and the balance between the two numbers provides a narrow “habitable zone” where stars and planets can form and life-supporting molecular structures can emerge. Sunglasses. However, the new findings suggest that these two fundamental constants may also influence other scientific fields, such as materials science and condensed matter physics, by placing limits on certain material properties such as the speed of sound.

Scientists tested their theoretical predictions on various materials and discussed a specific prediction from their theory that the speed of sound decreases with atomic mass. This prediction implies that sound is the fastest in the solid hydrogen atom. However, hydrogen is an atomic solid with a very high pressure, it can reach over 1 million atmospheres, a pressure comparable to that in the core of a gas giant like Jupiter. At this pressure, hydrogen becomes a solid metal that conducts electricity like copper and is expected to become a superconductor at room temperature. Therefore, the researchers performed sophisticated quantum mechanical calculations to test these predictions and found that the speed of sound in the solid hydrogen atom is close to a fundamental theoretical limit.

According to Professor Chris Pickard, Professor of Materials Science at Cambridge University, sound waves in solid objects are very important in many scientific fields. For example, seismologists use sound waves triggered by earthquakes deep within the Earth to understand seismic properties, events and properties of the Earth’s composition. It is also of interest to scientists researching materials because sound waves are associated with important elastic properties, including the ability to withstand stress, which will likely be further investigated in future in-depth studies.