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What if you throw a water proof speaker under water, and then dive underwater yourself, can you hear the sound?

Written by Wamiq Ali

The world is well governed by different physical phenomena which are constantly being discovered. Sound travelling through the atmosphere is one of the things which we experience on a daily basis. However, this article is not going to give you details about the travel of sound through the air, rather we are focused on the travel of sound through the liquids.

If you throw a waterproof speaker under water and then dive underwater yourself, can you hear the sound?

The answer to this question might be very obvious to some people but others might think twice to give the correct answer. Don’t worry, I am here to help you out on physics concept. The answer to this particular question is quite impressive and entertaining.

“Impedance Mismatch” can cause sound to stop travelling from one medium into another. Let’s say sound is about to cross air in order to go into the water, but that is not going to happen. Take another scenario, travelling from water into the air, when sound hits that “soft release” it gets reflected back into the water rather than going ahead because the air impedance is much lesser than the water. The same will be the case with sound created in air and travelling to the water.

However, if the sound source is in water, and listener (human) is also in water, then yes you can hear the sound.

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Wamiq Ali


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