When the door of the Chapel of the Mausoleum in Hamilton, Scotland, is slammed shut, the last echo heard by someone standing just inside the door reportedly comes 15 s later. If that echo were due to a single reflection off a wall opposite the door, how far from the door is the wall?

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Solution A

Solution B

Answered 1 year ago

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We have the following given: $t=15\;\text{s}$ and $d=25.7\;\text{m}$ . Since the echo was due to one reflection, this means that the sound has covered the distance from the door to the wall twice. Therefore, we have:

D=(n+1)d=v\times t=343\times 15=5160\;\text{m}

Where d is the distance from the door to the wall.

d=5160/2=2580\;\text{m}

Notice that we have substituted with $n=1$ as the sound reflected only once.

Answered 2 years ago

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After 16.2 seconds we hear a lightning strike from the moment we saw lightning.

( t = 16.2s)

*  The speed of sound in the air is $343 \frac{m}{s} (v_{sound} = 343m\frac{m}{s})$

*  The speed of light in the air is $3\times 10^8  \frac{m}{s} (v_{light} = 3 \times 10^8 \frac{m}{s})$

Based on the data provided, it is necessary to understand how far we are from lightning. Since light travels at the highest speed known in nature we take that lightning strike occurred the moment when we saw the lightning.

Why is the sound of thunder late after lightning?

From the fact that the speed of sound and light through the air we see that the sound extends at a much lower speed so it will take longer to reach our ears.
We can tell the distance from lightning by multiplying the speed of sound in the air and the time we heard lightning strikes after seeing lightning i.e.