Two students are provided with a starting pistol, a stopwatch and a long measuring tape. The starting pistol produces a loud sound and a puff of smoke. Describe how the students use the apparatus to calculate the speed of sound.
The students stand at a distance of 200 m from each other (measured with the measuring tape). Student 1 fires the pistol, Student 2 starts the stopwatch when they see smoke from the pistol and stop it when they hear the sound from the pistol.Using the equation Speed = Distance/Time and assuming that the time for the light to reach student two is negligible, they can then calculate the speed of sound.
JM
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