If you shout to your friend who is at the same distance from you across a playground and is also touching the other end of a steel rail, through which path will your friend hear your voice first, and why?
Through the steel rail because sound travels much faster in solids than in air.
Sound is a mechanical wave, and its speed depends on the medium. In solids the particles are tightly packed and strongly bound (high elasticity), so vibrations pass on very quickly.
The speed of sound is about 343 m/s in air, but about 5,000–6,000 m/s in steel – roughly 15 times faster. Over the same distance, the sound through the steel rail therefore reaches the friend much earlier than the sound through the air.
Sound does not travel more easily in air than in solids – it is slower in air; steel conducts sound very efficiently, not poorly; and the reason the rail sound arrives first is its speed, not that solids make every sound louder.
Hence, your friend hears your voice first through the steel rail because sound travels much faster in solids than in air.
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