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In fluid dynamics, the speed of sound in a fluid medium (gas or liquid) is used as a relative measure for the speed of an object moving through the medium. The ratio of the speed of an object to the speed of sound (in the same medium) is called the object's Mach number.
For an incident wave traveling from one medium (where the wave speed is c 1) to another medium (where the wave speed is c 2), one part of the wave will transmit into the second medium, while another part reflects back into the other direction and stays in the first medium. The amplitude of the transmitted wave and the reflected wave can be ...
Wave speed is a wave property, which may refer to absolute value of: . phase velocity, the velocity at which a wave phase propagates at a certain frequency; group velocity, the propagation velocity for the envelope of wave groups and often of wave energy, different from the phase velocity for dispersive waves
The wave velocity in one medium not only may differ from that in another, but the velocity typically varies with wavelength. As a result, the change in direction upon entering a different medium changes with the wavelength of the wave. For electromagnetic waves the speed in a medium is governed by its refractive index according to
A linear medium if the amplitudes of different waves at any particular point in the medium can be added; A uniform medium or homogeneous medium if its physical properties are unchanged at different locations in space; An anisotropic medium if one or more of its physical properties differ in one or more directions
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. [1] Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomenon, but other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction. How much a wave ...
A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases, is a good visualization. Real-world examples include sound waves (vibrations in pressure, a particle of displacement, and particle velocity propagated in an elastic medium) and seismic P waves (created by earthquakes and explosions).
The speed of sound depends on the medium the waves pass through, and is a fundamental property of the material. The first significant effort towards measurement of the speed of sound was made by Isaac Newton. He believed the speed of sound in a particular substance was equal to the square root of the pressure acting on it divided by its density: