Speed of Sound

This weekend my family finally got some of our spring break photos developed.  Over the break we took a vacation skiing and also to Disneyland.  Every night at the "happiest place in the world" there is a great laser and fireworks show.  The first night we got in late and we were unable to go into the park but as i viewed the show from our hotel room balcony i noticed that there was over a 1 second delay between seeing the colors of the fireworks and actually hearing its report.  then the next night i got to see the show in its entirety with almost front row seats.  this time not only was the show even more astounding but i also came to notice that the time lag between the sight and sound had decreased dramatically and almost appeared instantaneous.  i say almost with emphasis because there was still some lag between the two sensed events.  this delay occurs because light travels much faster than sound.  speed of sound is approximately 340 m/s depending on the temperature this is far less than the speed at which light travels which is 300,000,000 m/s.

Piano

This weekend i had the sudden inclination to play my piano. as i put my fingers on the keys i played a middle c with my left thumb. then acting on instinct i played the next higher c with my left pointer finger.  amazingly i found that these two notes sounded almost identical. i found it was because the higher note was one octave higher than the lower one.  this also means in physics terms that the frequency of the higher note was two times larger than the lower note.  then i took this one step further. i played both notes simultaneously and it produced a nice melodic blend of notes.