Thunder and Lightning
How far away was the lightning if the flash and the thunderclap were 6 seconds apart?
Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
Problem
Image
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Sound travels at about 330 metres per second; light travels so fast that it arrives almost instantaneously. If you time the gap between a flash of lightning and its clap of thunder as 6 seconds, roughly how far away is the storm? |
If you liked this problem, here is an NRICH task which challenges you to use similar mathematical ideas.
Student Solutions
Answer: About 2km.
The distance is roughly $6 \times 330 \approx 2000$m.