• Ulvain@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    I’m not a scientist by a long shot, but my understanding is that sound if indeed a wave, carried by a medium (air, water, etc). Upon hitting your eardrum, this wave is converted by your eardrum and your auditory nerve into signals your brain decodes. The remainder of the wave continues though, until it runs out of medium, hits an obstacle (basically another medium) or dissipates. Again, just my layman’s understanding!

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      4 days ago

      Don’t forget the inverse square law. Even without a change in medium or any obstacles, the strength of the signal decrease over distance until it is undetectable.

      This is also why there are no extraterrestrial civilizations hearing any radio broadcasts from Earth. Our transmitters are so weak that any signals we send out fade into the CMB before they get any real distance.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        4 days ago

        If they didn’t fade with distance, this is as far as they have gotten. So for now we are still quiet in the dark forest.

      • Clent@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        You area conflating auditory waves with radio waves.

        These are very much not the same thing. Sound waves require a medium while radio waves do not.

        Radio waves travel vast distances through space while sound doesn’t travel at all.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
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          4 days ago

          Space is a medium, as exemplified by the fact that light curves around massive objects, because the space is curved.