i mean, all those photons must collide and make shockwaves.. where's the sound? or.. what is sound exactly ?
212104
light cannot directly produce sound, but audible sound can be produced as a result of the rapid heating and expansion of the surrounding air of a powerful light beam.\nan example of this is thunder and lightning.
648779
maybe someone got shot right outside your window while it was raining.. perfect cover\n\nNo, really the different sounds are created by different frequencies and wavelentghs of the vibrations caused by the electricity splitting the air. This can vary from the sonic boom you hear when a F15 crosses Mach 1 .. to the crack noise you hear with a whip. As for the loudness, it is a function of intensity and proximity.. so yea the same lightning will be louder when its closer.. but it could also be a very strong lightning far away.. the way you could tell would be the difference in light and sound... \n\ni hope this helps
14258
either sound, waves or air.
599133
In the sense of an earthquake, yeah.  That's what it is.  A wave of earth moving out from the central point of origin.  That has nothing to do with the wave-particle duality.  In fact, it's best not to think of it as an actual wave or an actual particle (like a billiard ball).
231769
Actualy, I am an expert in this field, having a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences.\n\nI don't believe light is a particle, exactly.  It is a quantization of energy, but not really like a particle.  If it were a particle it would explain how it can propagate across nothingness.  The existence of something in space would just get into its way, so the nothingness only helps light to propagate.  But a particle implies rest mass and other physical properties which light does not have.\n\nI don't believe that empty space is something, contrary to the way some people interpret Einstein.\n\nI don't believe it is action at a distance.  Light takes a finite amount of time to cross space.  The action occurs where the light is.\n\nThe question was more of a problem when light was considered to be merely a wave.  A wave needed a medium to disturb or propagate across.  Sound moves molecules about as it propagates.  But light only bears a resemblance to a wave in the way it behaves.  It is not like a classical wave.\n\nThe best way I can think of to explain it is to understand that an electromagnetic wave carries with it its own medium.  The electric and magnetic fields oscillate, feeding on itself, so to speak.  The energy is launched into space and perpetuates itself according to the laws of physics.
15949
Sight. The speed of light, that's what people say to describe something very fast. Have you heard people say the speed of sound instead? I haven't.
174577
The most difficult part of understanding things that happen at the microscopic and nanoscopic scale is that a lot of the rules that apply in our everyday lives simply don't work with elementary particles.  If you try to visualize these things, you'll probably end up with some wrong conclusions.\n\nThat said, light waves are fundamentally different from any other wave, such as water, sound, etc., because they do not travel through a medium.  A sound wave travels through air molecules, a water wave travels through water, but a light wave doesn't travel through anything.  To make matters even more confusing, light also has particle-like properties, yet it has no mass and no molecular weight.  A light particle, or photon, is considered an elementary particle, like an electron, proton, or neutron, so it has no molecular make-up, either.\n\nWaves that travel through a medium also do not have a molecular make-up.  Think of a Slinky, for instance.  If you shake one end of the Slinky, a wave travels through the Slinky to the other end, but there's no molecule form for that wave.  The wave basically just energy traveling down a line.  One molecule pushes another molecule pushes another molecule and so on and so on.
369402
because LIGHT travels faster than SOUND!!!\n\nSpeed of light:  186,282.397 miles per second\n\nSpeed of sound:  1238 km/h or 770 mph
213370
Ernie... I love this question..  it rocks.\n\nThe answer, however, is going to be just a little dissappointing.\n\nAs I'm sure you know, all light is both a particle and a wave; it is a form of nearly pure energy.  As we know from theoretical physics, energy can never be created, nor can it be destroyed.  It just changes forms.  According to the third law of thermodynamics, energy always goes from higher to lower forms when left on its own, the lowest form of energy often being considered to be heat.  And that's where your wandering, amazing laserlight goes, it turns to heat.  \n\nWhy?\n\nBecause your room of mirrors is completely imperfect.  Your mirrors are dismally inefficient reflectors of light, and the room is full of air.  Household mirrors actually reflect less than 25% of the light energy that shines on them back to you.  Lab quality mirrors made for laser work are, I believe, in the high 80% to low 90% reflectivity efficiency range.  Every time your beam hits a mirror surface and bounces off, it looses more of its energy to heat..  just as it does as it passes thrugh every atom and molicule that makes up the air in the room as well.  Your laser might make it one or two 'miles' of beam length in the room before it is bouncing around.. which would make for thousands of beams.  But, since light travels at 186,000 miles per second, your two mile beam lasts 1/93,000th of a second after you turn the power off before it's gone.  So, it DOES keep going.. but not long enough for you to percieve it.\n\nSo, IF you had perfect mirrors, IN a perfect sphere (remember; you couldn't have any corners!) a COMPLETE vacium inside it with NO particles of dust of ANY kind, and a way to fire the beam into the amazing sphere without leaving any void for energy to escape...  your theory would work, if all that were PERFECT.  But; the biggest catch would be; you could never know if it were working!  Because to find out; you would have to have a void in the sphere to see or measure it...  and measuring any energy source draws energy from it.. so, there goes your light again.\n\nSo, that's why, but it's still a great question.  Theoretical Physics is full of stuff like that...  and thinking about it will turn your brain into silly putty for days.  Keep 'em coming, Ernie..  you've got a great future if you keep your mind working like that.
524273
Well. \n\nHow fast does sound travel in three seconds?\n\n3x 340 m/s = 1020 m. I thought that was \na little fast, but I could be wrong.\n\nLight travels way faster than that, so you pretty\nmuch see the lightning right when it happens.\n\nSo the event occurs 1020 meters away.
324070
Technology probably Flash or Shockwave, terminology is "annoying"
286304
Yeah man...light is one of the most energetic forms that we witness. Light actually has many types of energy, just like most other things. \n\n1) Photons of light (of a suitable frequency are capable of imparting enough momentum to an electron in a metal so that the electron leaves the metal's surface. This is known as the photoelectric effect and the credit for it's knowledge goes to Mr.Einstein.\n\n2) Light has heat energy, and therefore thermodynamic value. You'll see that if you stand in the sun too long, you will be hot. \n\n3) The thermodynamic energy of light causes photochemical reactions, such as the radicalisation of halogen atoms, or the redox reactions of alkyl halides. \n\nI cannot be too sure of my satisfaction quotient with this answer because your question overlays so many fundamental concepts of light. For example, you wouldn't ask a rolling ball, "Excuse me sir, but how much energy do you really have?" The ball will snicker because you have not specified WHAT KIND OF ENERGY you want from the ball. Now, if you were to ask, "Excuse me sir, what is your KINETIC energy?", the ball would happily answer that it would be half of its mass multiplied by the square of its velocity. \n\nOne of the kinds of energy does involve a mass parameter and that would be the photoelectrical energy of light. This energy functions on the sound premise that linear and angular momentum are conserved, and since light has dual (mass-wave) nature, this kind of energy does involve mass. \n\nWe know that the energy of a photon of frequency v is E=hv where h is Planck's constant. We also know that the energy of a photon in relation to its mass is E=mc^2. THus we can say:\n\nmc^2 = hv.\n\nAll right, here is a clear answer, which I just realized. \n\nOne photon of light has the above mentioned amount of energy, and therefore a ray of light will have the energy of how many ever photons are in the ray of light. \n\nSo for n photons, energy of the ray of light is nhv. \n\nNow THIS nhv can be CONVERTED into all of the forms mentioned above. Light has energy which is capable of doing different kinds of work. \n\nForgive me for the error of thinking that light has different forms of energy. It has one form of energy which can be CONVERTED into different forms of energy. Phew....\n\nI really must thank you as this was a learning process for me too.\n\nAyerhs.
669549
In outer space there are some gasses but not enough in any one place to provide a medium for a sound wave to propagate through. Asteroids and meteors are silent until they enter an atmosphere.
90206
Thunder is the sound of the shockwave caused when lightning instantly heats the air around it to up to 30 000 °C (54 000 °F). That super-heated air expands rapidly, then contracts as it cools. The rapid expansion/contraction generates sound waves, making the sound that is called "thunder."\n\nSince sound and light travel at different speeds through the atmosphere, one can time the interval between them to roughly estimate how far away the bolt of lightning is. The speed of sound in air is approximately 332 m/s (742.6 mph), while the speed of light is so fast that the lightning is seen only a few microseconds after the event, so the lightning is approximately one kilometer distant for every 3 second interval (one mile for every 5 seconds).
99061
Light can be both a particle and a wave.
183647
blackpowder or gunpowder exploding makes the cracle sound. they just put it in smaller sections so it wont be as loud
587252
You need an energy transformer machine.  You put sound in, press the sound-to-electricity button and out comes electricity.  Make sure you have a storage cell attached or you'll get shocked.