[Physics] Sound frequencies travel at the same speed

acousticsdispersionfrequencyspeedwaves

as the diagram shows

sound frequencies travel at the same speed
or each frequency has a given speed
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Best Answer

The phenomenon where waves with different frequencies have slightly different speeds is known as "dispersion," because an impulse which begins with lots of different frequencies traveling together will "disperse" and spread out as the faster frequencies move ahead of the slower ones.

Acoustic dispersion is pretty easy to demonstrate. Here's a great video where the effect is audible in cracking ice on top of a lake, and also audible in struck metal cables. Acoustic dispersion in metal cables is how the foley artists for Star Wars created the iconic "pew pew" sound associated with the laser blasters in those movies. In both systems --- ice layers and metal cables --- the higher frequencies have a faster wave speed than the lower frequencies, which why it's "pew pew" rather than "wep wep."

If acoustic dispersion were important in air, then distant impulse sounds --- as from lightning bolts or fireworks explosions --- would also exhibit the "pew pew" effect. Thunder produced from medium-distance storms does tend to start off with high frequencies and end up with a low rumble, but in a chaotic way rather than in the musical way heard in the video for ice layers and metal cables. I think that frequency dispersion in thunder is more about echos off of the terrain and extinction of the higher frequencies in the air rather than the about the higher frequencies outrunning the lower ones.