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The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. The SI unit of speed is the metre per second (m/s). In dry air at , the speed of sound is . This is , or a kilometre in or a mile in . The speed of sound in an ideal gas is independent of frequency, but does vary slightly with frequency in a real gas. It is proportional to the square root of the absolute temperature, but is independent of pressure or density for a given ideal gas. The speed of sound in air varies slightly with pressure only because air is not quite an ideal gas. Although (in the case of gases only) the speed of sound is expressed in terms of a ratio of ''both'' density and pressure, these quantities cancel in ideal gases at any given temperature, composition, and heat capacity. This leads to a velocity formula for ideal gases which includes only the latter independent variables. In common everyday speech, ''speed of sound'' refers to the speed of sound waves in air. However, the speed of sound varies from substance to substance. Sound travels faster in liquids and non-porous solids than it does in air. It travels about 4.3 times as fast in water (), and nearly 15 times as fast in iron (), as in air at . Sound waves in solids are composed of compression waves (just as in gases and liquids), but there is also a different type of sound wave called a shear wave, which occurs only in solids. These different types of waves in solids usually travel at different speeds, as exhibited in seismology. The speed of a compression sound wave in solids is determined by the medium's compressibility, shear modulus and density. The speed of shear waves is determined only by the solid material's shear modulus and density. In fluid dynamics, the speed of sound in a fluid medium (gas or liquid) is used as a relative measure for the speed of an object moving through the medium. The speed of an object divided by the speed of sound in the fluid is called the Mach number. Objects moving at speeds greater than ' are travelling at supersonic speeds. ==History== Sir Isaac Newton computed the speed of sound in air as , which is too low by about 15%,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 The Speed of Sound )〕 but had neglected the effect of fluctuating temperature; that was later rectified by Laplace. During the 17th century, there were several attempts to measure the speed of sound accurately, including attempts by Marin Mersenne in 1630 (1,380 Parisian feet per second), Pierre Gassendi in 1635 (1,473 Parisian feet per second) and Robert Boyle (1,125 Parisian feet per second).〔 In 1709, the Reverend William Derham, Rector of Upminster, published a more accurate measure of the speed of sound, at 1,072 Parisian feet per second. Derham used a telescope from the tower of the church of St Laurence, Upminster to observe the flash of a distant shotgun being fired, and then measured the time until he heard the gunshot with a half second pendulum. Measurements were made of gunshots from a number of local landmarks, including North Ockendon church. The distance was known by triangulation, and thus the speed that the sound had travelled could be calculated. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Speed of sound」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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