Question

Suppose that you hear a clap of thunder 16 s after seeing the associated lightning strike. How far are you from the lightning strike? The speed of sound waves in air is 336 m/s and the speed of light in air is 3 × 108 m/s. Answer in units of km

Answer 1

Answer:

$d=5.376km$

Explanation:

Since light is so fast we can assume no time passes between the lightning strikes and we observe it. We want to know then how far away did the strike occur for the sound to take 16s to reach our ears. Since the definition of velocity tells us that $v=d/t$, we can write $d=vt=(336m/s)(16s)=5376m=5.376km$