Why is the speed of light faster than the speed of sound?
962847
Sound relies upoon matter to convey its energy, and it takes time for the matter particles to "bump" into eachother to transport the sound energy, even in a solid. Remember sound is a compression or longitudinal wave.\n\nLight does not rely upon any medium to convey it, so no matter needs to move at all.
1048247
There may be objects (tachyons) that move faster than light, up to perhaps infinite speeds.\nHowever, nothing already slower than light can accelerate to or beyond the speed of light.
217609
light intensity is maximum at the source and dies down over distance, this can be explained with wave theory of light. so a medium in which light travels faster is where light looses intensity faster. but that is relative to another medium. because in any medium light is the fastest travelling thing. it may not be 'c' but fastest possible. \nso i conclude nothing :D
166913
Actually, photons in vaccum are found to travel sometimes faster and sometimes slower than speed of light, but during very brief instants of time. If you are measuring velocities in a distance thats long enough (always in terms of atomic distances) the avarage speed turns to be the speed of light. But if you are measuring shorter distances (I don't know how short it has to be) you have to take into account that maybe you will measure a higher or lower speed than the light speed.\n\nWe can say that photons have a very high probability of travelling at the speed of light, and very small probabilities of travelling a bit faster or a bit slower. If the distance is long enough, the faster velocities will cancel with the slower ones, and the avarage will be light speed.
160198
This is a very interesting question and most people don't understand it.\nTHE value of the speed of light  is "C" in vaccuum IRRESPECTIVE of the refernce frame. Light will travel at velocity C (relative to you) even if you are going at C. \n\nSounds crazy? This is at the fundamental of Einstien's assumption which was later proved right. Common sense is often wrong.
344500
Yes the difference between the two are still the speed of light -- it's because at speed of light, or even just factions of the speed of light "normal" Neut on physics stops and only relativity theory explains what happens.  At speed of light time no longer move at the same rate, so the two object will not have same reference in time, and since speed is distance over time, the comparison make little sense to the normal perception of how things work.\n\nAn that ultimately explain why the difference between the two is not 1000 miles per hour.
910771
"Both light and sound are waves." "and is there a physical analogous comparison of light waves to sound waves?"\n\nYes they are both waves. However, light is known as an electromagnetic wave which is a propagating disturbance of both the electric and magnetic field in space. Sound however is a pressure wave transmitted through a medium. Light waves are transverse meaning the direction of travel is perpendicular to the direction of oscillation. While sound waves are longitudinal meaning the direction of travel is parallel to the direction of oscillation. Another difference is that light waves DO NOT need a medium of travel (they can go through a vacuum) however sound waves exist only in a medium.\n\n"Sound is measured in Hz. how are light waves measured?"\nYou are correct, one measurement of sound is in Hz. However, waves have 4 unique properties. Velocity the rate that it propagates which is measured in m/s. Frequency, how many times the wave repeats itself in a period of time measured in Hz. Wavelength, the distance between complete cycles measured in meters. And finally, Amplitude or Intensity which is measured in decibels or W/m^2 which measures how high the crests become and how low the troughs become. The larger the amplitude the higher the peaks and lower the valleys. This is also measured in meters. Higher intensitys is proportional to the amount of energy the wave has. \n\nAs far as measuring a light wave, we usually measure the intensity and either the wavelength or frequency of the light wave.  The wavelength of light and sound is inversely proportional to the frequency because the velocity is fixed to the speed of sound 343 m/s or the speed of light 3.00 x 10^8 m/s.  \nThe higher the frequency of light, the more the light moves to the purple end of the spectrum (think about the rainbow). The human eye typically picks up light between 390 (purple) nm - 970 (red) nm\n\nvelocity = wavelength * frequency.
666698
The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (or 1,079,252,848.8  kilometres per hour, which is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second, or 670,616,629.4 miles per hour). \nThe speed of sound c (from Latin celeritas, "velocity") varies depending on the medium through which the sound waves pass.
629963
Besides the obvious "that's just how the universe and nature is" reason, it might be because sound is the propogation of mechanical waves.  It needs things like air to travel through and disturb the molecules.  Light is just itself (in some wavelength form) and travels that quickly.
827091
Hi. I think it deals more with the interaction of radiation with particles (or a particle) than with speed. At any non-relativistic speed (less than .1 'c' say) the wavelength would not be infinite or unbounded. Just my opinion.
676715
The speed of light is the upper limit of speed in our space-time universe. Nothing here can be faster. And no car or any other macroscopic object can be equal to the speed of light. But the question is a thought experiment, hence, a good one indeed. Questions like this were raised by Einstein and Relativity became part of modern physical theory.\n\nSince the speed of light is an upper limit, the light from the headlamp of the relativistic car cannot be faster than the car. You won't see them in front.
34913
It is not possible for any particle that has mass to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason has a lot to do with relativity. Because the faster you go, the slower time passes for you. So if you are at 80% of the speed of light, and launch a projectile in front of you at light speed, because of your slow passage through time, it will still appear to you to travel at light. Everything is relative, and because of that, certain constants like the speed of light never change.\n\nAlso, a particle with mass would achieve infinite weight at light speed. Since you can't obviously exceed infinite weight, you can't exceed light.\n\nThe ideas behind things like "warp speed" don't propose actually traveling faster than light. What they propose is taking shortcuts through space, kind of like skipping a stone across the surface of the water. Even "warp speed" is subject to the laws of relativity.
185936
At ground zero, a significant fraction of the speed of light. However at a short distance it diminishes to the speed of sound.
38745
I'm pretty sure that the red light would go faster than the blue.\n\nThe speed of light is NOT constant.  It is only constant in a vacuum.  In other media, the speed is retarded.  The refractive index is a measure of the degree to which light is slowed when it enters a non-vacuum medium.  The more light is refracted, the more it is being slowed by the medium.  Since red light is refracted the least, I think that's indicative of red light being least slowed by the medium transition.
1186727
It is a failing of the current theories of physics that the values of the key fundamental constants - of which c is one - cannot be derived but have to be measured and inserted into the equations. In other words, no-one knows what determines the speed of light.\n\nIt is true that the permittivity and permeability of free space are related to the speed of light, but the relationship is the other way around - they are what they are because the speed of light is what it is.\n\nThere have been two sources of thoughts that the speed of light may vary over time. One is theoretical, because it may help the sums work better when describing the early universe (i.e. moment after the big bang).\n\nThe other is experimental, and is controversial as it has not been independently confirmed (see link). This involves looking at light from galaxies so far away the light took billions of years to reach us - ie we are looking back to the early universe. But the measurements show a change in the fine structure constant, and not c directly, so there could be other sources of the discrepancies if the measurements are correct.
177169
If it has rest mass, it can't travel faster than light, because as it gets closer to lightspeed, more of the energy you're using to increase its speed is converted into an increase in mass, which of course makes it harder to increase its speed.  Lorentz and Fitzgerald worked out the equations a century ago, and they've been confirmed in particle accelerators.  See the link.
753670
The speed of light varies depending on the medium the light is traveling through.  In a vacuum however, which is the fastest medium in which light can travel, the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s.