I was watching an XKCD “What-If” video recently and Randal off-handedly mentions the title fact as a given. Upon a further Google search I see explanations about why sound moves faster in liquids than gasses but nothing for my specific question. Is there an intuitive explanation for that fact or is it just one of those weird observable facts with no clear explanation

  • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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    4 days ago

    You already got some answers, but I thought of something you might find interesting: if you had a multiple kilometers long pole in a vacuum and pushed on it, the push itself would propagate at the speed of sound!

    Meaning the other end wouldn’t really move immediately, but it would instead take multiple seconds or even minutes if the pole is large enough. If it’s made of oak and is 9 km long, it would take around 3 seconds (the speed of sound in oak is around 3 km/s IIRC).