Suppose you hear a clap of thunder 14.4 s after seeing the associated lightning strike. The speed of light in air is 3.00 ✕ 108 m/s. (a) How far are you from the lightning strike? (The speed of sound waves in air is 343 m/s.) (b) Do you need to know the value of the speed of light to answer?

Answer

Given,

Time to hear the clap = 14.4 s

speed of the light = 3 x 10⁸ m/s

Speed of sound = 343 m/s

a) distance where lightning strike

D = s x t

D = 14.4 x 343

D = 4939.2 m

b) No, we do not need to know the value of speed of light. Because we need to calculate the distance where we hear the sound. To calculate that we need to know the speed of sound.