It will be just as loud as the last splash when your ears were not plugged. Try plugging your ears underwater and listening for another splash of someone jumping in.
That's because body tissues contain such a large amount of water. The other reason is that underwater sound waves pass directly into your head, bypassing your ears altogether. That's one reason that underwater a sound seems to come from all directions at once. Travelling that fast, the sound is detected by both ears at almost exactly the same moment. The more distant ear gets a smaller dose of the sound a little bit later because it's farther away from the source and also because it's shielded by the head.Įven though we don't notice the difference consciously, it's enough for the brain to decide which direction the sound came from.īut sound travels five times faster in water than it does in air. Under The WaterĪbove the surface of the water, we can tell whether a sound comes from the left or right because it strikes one ear a little sooner and a little more loudly. A leader board at the bottom shows who won. Rock'N Racer - With four lanes, riders race each other through tight 360 degree loops to see who finishes first. Water does a much better job than air of conducting sound waves, but that extra conductivity makes it harder, not easier, to tell where a sound comes from. Bass Drop - This extreme high-speed, open-flume body ride is a six-story free-fall into six inches of water 48' height requirement. For the most part the medium through which it travels is air, although sound waves can just as readily travel though water or metal materials. But telling where the splash came from is another matter. sounds will pass through a wall or a glass window Liquids e.g. If you've ever been underwater at a pool when someone jumped in near you, you know that the sound of the splash is clearly audible.