Dark and Stormy Night

Comparison of the Speed of Sound and the Speed of Light

Your task is to complete the following essay using the needed data and information collected from whatever source may be at your disposal in room 416.

It was a dark and stormy night...(solve the mystery presented to you by the strange visitor to your office of detectives. This mystery is [How long would it take sound to travel from the sun to each of the planets (if it could pass through the almost 'mediumless' distances of space) and how does that compare with the time necessary for light to travel those same distances?]...and then perhaps this was all my imagination working overtime...


Classes will decide on the favorite essays and they will be published at this site.

Sarah, Courtney, and Kristina

TIME'S MYSTERY

It was a dark and stormy night . . . My partner and I were sitting around the office playing 'Go Fish'. My name's Sarah ....., private eye. My partner, Annie, was just about to pick a card when a knock came on the door. "Come in." I called.

In walked the most mysterious man I had ever seen. He had dark brooding eyes and black disheveled hair, He held in his hand a black top hat, He gave the impression that he hadn't slept in weeks. "I need your help." He said. It was more a plea than any thing else.
"What's the problem?" I asked, carelessly tossing a card aside.
"Well, you see, I don't quite know, that's the thing." He turned toward the door as if to leave but instead took a deep breath and turned back. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again.
"Then why did you come here?" my partner asked slowly.
"It's these dreams" he replied, now intent on studying his shoes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Annie's eyebrows raise and the corners of her mouth start to quirk upward, I shot her a glance then said, "Please continue."
"Like I said, it's these strange dreams I've been having over and over again." He started to pace the length of the room. "It's gotten so bad, that I'm afraid to go to sleep, and I just lie awake thinking about them, and I just have to know!" He stopped pacing.
"Don't you think a sleep therapist would be more appropriate?" Annie said wryly.
"No!," he shot back frantically, He started to pace again. "In these dreams, I see a man standing on the corner of a street asking people if they know what 'it' is, They always nod yes, but when he gets to me, I ask him what 'it' is. He says, 'why the time it would take light and sound to travel from the sun to each of the planets, of course!' Then he goes on to the next person. He won't tell me anything else. I don't know why but I need to find out, But wherever I look, the answer's not there. That's why I've come here. Can you help me?" He stopped pacing to look hopefully at me.
How could I say no?
"We'll try," I said finally. "Come back in twenty-four hours and we'll have your answers."
The man looked considerably relieved as he turned to walk out the door.
"Wait!" I called after him. "I don't have your name."
"Richard Johnson," he called back, and then he was gone.
"They get stranger and stranger every day," Annie muttered.
I sighed then grabbed my coat from off a chair. "Come on, we've got work to do."
Our first stop was the local library, Even as we walked in, I knew something was wrong, The place was mainly deserted. Usually it was busy. The librarian was no help either. She turned quite pale when we told her of our plight and mentioned Richard Johnson's name. Then she told us she couldn't help us, Couldn't or wouldn't? I thought.
Finally, we wended our way back to a part of the library I hadn't seen before. There Annie spotted an old leather bound book resting on a podium against the wall. On the cover, in gold print, were the words: THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE. Annie flipped the book open and as if the words were highlighted, our gaze was drawn to a certain paragraph that read, 'The speed of light travels at 300,000 km/s but the speed of sound travels at 332 m/s.' I took out my handy notepad and pen, jotted down the numbers, then turned to Annie.
"Where to now?" she asked.
After questioning a very uncooperative source, we then proceeded to the science laboratory on 42nd Street. But when we knocked on the door, we were denied admittance by a very stout man with a big bushy beard. When the door was closed in our face for the third time, I turned to my partner and said, "Well you know what we have to do now."
"Does this mean I have to get my lock picking kit out again?," Annie asked.
Around midnight, Annie and I were sneaking around the laboratory, after Annie had skillfully picked the lock open. We headed straight for the main computer, I sat down and opened the hard drive file and found the document I was looking for. The document was encrypted well, but was no match for my skill, I decoded it in no time. We found the page containing the distances from the sun to each of the planets, It was the last piece to this strange and twisted puzzle.
Once back in the office, we tried to make sense of the information. The distance from the sun to each planet was written in scientific notation, so by converting the speed of light and sound to scientific notation, I was ready to calculate.
First, I took the distance to mercury, 5.79 x 10(lO)s, and divided it by the speed of sound, 3,32 x 10(2) m/s and got 1.74 x 10(8) s. I repeated the steps except I used the speed of light instead of the speed of sound. I calculated it for all the other planets in the same fashion, our results were:

Distance from sun to: Time for sound: Time for light:

Mercury- 5.79xl0(lO)m 1.74xlO(8)s 1.93xlO(2)s
Venus- 1.08xlO(11)m 3.3xlO(8)s 3.6xlO(2)s
Earth- 1.5xlO(11)m 4.5xlO(8)s 5xlO(2)s
mars- 2.28xlO(11)m 6.9xlO(8)s 7.6xlO(2)s
Jupiter- 7.78xlO(11)m 2.34xlO(9)s 2.59xlO(3)s
Saturn- 1.43xlO(l2)m 4.3xlO(9)s 4.29xlC(3)s
Uranus- 2.87xlO(l2)m 8.6xlO(9)s 9.5x1O(3)s
Neptune- 4.5xlO(l2)m 1.35xlO(lO)s 1.5xlO(4)s
Pluto- 5.91xlO(l2)m 1.78xlO(10)s 1.97xlC(4)s
Exactly 24 hours from the first encounter, Richard Johnson came back. The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing the same clothes held worn the day before in exactly the same fashion, Except today he was a little paler. He took his hat off and set it down on a nearby chair. "Did you find it?," He asked hopefully.
"Yes, we found it." Sarah said, handing the paper to him.
He gave a sigh of relief, and a ghost of a smile past over his lips. "Thank you, thank you so much!" he exclaimed. "How will I ever repay you?"
"Don't worry about it, it's on us," I replied with a smile. I could see my partners eyebrows lift, but she said nothing.
When Richard left, I noticed his hat was still on the chair, I went out into the hallway, but he was already gone. Annie picked up the hat then walked over to where I stood. "Hey, look," she said. In the brim of the hat was written, Richard Johnson, 213 Herald's Avenue.
"I guess that's where he lives. Well, off we go!" I said, walking down the hall with Annie close behind.
Fifteen minutes later we stood before an apartment complex, we walked into the lobby, and I went to the front desk and rang the little bell. An immaculately tailored receptionist came to us.
"May I help you, ladies?" he asked, eying us suspiciously.
"Yes. Does a certain Mr. Richard Johnson live here?"
"Mr. J-Johnson?" the man stammered.
"Yes, Mr. Johnson."
"He hasn't lived here since a year ago today."
"Oh, did he move?" I inquired.
"No, he's dead."
Annie's mouth dropped open.I was not so easily astounded. "There must be some mistake."
"Did he have dark eyes and black hair?"
"That's the one. He always rambled on about planets and dreams. He was a peculiar sort, he was," the man finished.
"Oh d-dear, Well I think we should be g-going now. Have a nice day!" I called as Annie and I hurried out the door and onto the vacant street.
Neither of us said anything as we walked slowly home. Was the receptionist telling the truth? If so, who was the man who came to us just yesterday? Why did I have that gut feeling it wasn't appropriate to charge him for our services? was the fact that he lived on 'Herald' Avenue just a coincidence, or was Richard Johnson some kind of interplanetary traveler whose cosmic clock had gone out of whack? An angel perhaps...or then again maybe it's just my imagination.

Sarah
(To e-mail Sarah with your response to her essay, click here.)

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was shuffling through a stack of papers on my desk. Business had slowed down since I failed to find the robber of the McKinley estate, and I yearned for a client. A clap of thunder shook the office building, and almost instantly, my office went black. I backed up my office chair and fumbled around in my filing cabinet for an extra candle and some matches, There were footsteps outside my door, and a click of the doorknob as someone (or something) stepped in my office.

"Need a light?" A masculine voice seemed angelic in the darkness of my office. A lighter clicked, and at once, my office was illuminated with the light of a candle.

His attractive face was tan with a square jaw, He was unshaven, and through the stubble I could see years of pain and worrying upon his young face.

"The name's Smith," He took off his hat and seated himself in the leather chair '-, front of my desk, "and I need your help."

Finally a case. I stood up and took the candle to my desk, "How can I help you Mr. Smith? Was it robbery? Homicide? UFO sighting? Kidnap-"

"Actually, Detective Black, I was needing your assistance in a little science matter. If sound could travel through space to all the nine planets, what would it be like compared to that of light? I know it's a little bit of an odd case, but I need it for a term project. I was hoping you could help me."

The pencil I was holding went to the floor and my mouth went along with it. I stood up and glared at his sky blue eyes. "Do you call this a joke young man? This is a serious business, and I don't have time for childish games. If you are joking about this, I demand that you get out of my office. NOW!"

He remained in his seat. "Ma'am, I didn't mean to aggravate you. This is no joke. I really need your help, 'Will you take my case? If you need to sleep on it, I can wait until tomorrow, but then I really need your decision." He stood up and replaced his worn hat. I handed him my business card, and at that point the lights came back on,

"Here. Call me tomorrow, and I'll tell you my decision. Good night." I got up and showed him to the door and watched him walk down the hall.

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Early the next morning, my office phone rang. It was Mr. Smith, and I told him I could take the case. We agreed to meet at the local library to do research on the subject. At 10:00 a.m. sharp, we were both seated at a corner table in the library. There were piles of books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries all around us.

"The first thing we have to do is figure out the distance from each planet to the sun. You take Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn, and I'll take Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venuss, and Mercury, OK?" I instructed my client as where to start.

So we started. Fiften minutes later we had all of the distances from each planet to the sun. We recorded them down in a chart that organized Mr. Smith had arranged for us, Our next task remained at large. We figured that a little lunch could help, so we walked two blocks to a little corner cafe on 13th and West Hill streets.

While eating his turkey sandwich, Smith suddenly called out a jumble of sentences. 'Schpeed ofz liteje, ands sounfs!'

I stared at him like he had a foreign disease until he swallowed his food and repeated himself.

"I said find the speed of sound and light! That's our next step!" I could see his lace light up at his new discovery, and I felt mine fall at the lack to. I was failing as a detective. I guess he must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm too, because I saw concern across his face. He got up and put a ten dollar bill on the table, and walked out of the cafe.

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Back at the library, Mr. Smith as already at work. He had searched through our resources looking for the speed of sound and light. He had found them, and very quickly at that. He wrote them down and showed them to me first thing when I alked in the library. 300,000 km/s is the speed of light, and 332 m/s is the speed of sound. I had once again failed at my job. Why couldn't he realize that this was my job?

"Scientific notation." His voice sounded gruff from behind an encyclopedia.

"Euh?" I put my book down.

"Scientific notation is our next step. We have to change the speed of light to meters per second, and then we have to take the distance from the sun and put it in scientific notation. Then divide it." He sounded ashamed or embarrassed about his discoveries, and for a second I was mad too, but then I was proud of him. "We do that for both speed and sound. I think we should put it all together in one chart, and it would be easier to read."

So we did. Our chart looked something like this.

Distance from sun to: Time for sound: Time for light:

Mercury- 5.79xl0(lO)m 1.74xlO(8)s 1.93xlO(2)s
Venus- 1.08xlO(11)m 3.3xlO(8)s 3.6xlO(2)s
Earth- 1.5xlO(11)m 4.5xlO(8)s 5xlO(2)s
mars- 2.28xlO(11)m 6.9xlO(8)s 7.6xlO(2)s
Jupiter- 7.78xlO(11)m 2.34xlO(9)s 2.59xlO(3)s
Saturn- 1.43xlO(l2)m 4.3xlO(9)s 4.29xlC(3)s
Uranus- 2.87xlO(l2)m 8.6xlO(9)s 9.5x1O(3)s
Neptune- 4.5xlO(l2)m 1.35xlO(lO)s 1.5xlO(4)s
Pluto- 5.91xlO(l2)m 1.78xlO(10)s 1.97xlC(4)s

When we had arranged the information into a chart, my client looked at me with a grin on his face that nothing could compare to.

"Detective Black? We have done a superb job with my case, and I thank you for your help." He stood up and gathered his papers.

"Wh-what about the answer?" I stood up and gapped at him?"

"Oh the coparison? Easy. It's impossible; sound can't travel through space because there aren't any mediums, But if it could, light would still go much faster. Millions of times faster."

And then he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card, handed it to me, and then walked away. As he walked out the library door with a stack of papers in his arms, I read his business card -- Sherlock Holmes- Private eye ...

...But then again, maybe it was only my imagination.

Courtney
(To e-mail Courtney with your response to her essay, click here.)

It was a dark and stormy night and a man walked in drenched with rain water and sobbing in tears. Then he took off his mask and revealed a horrible sight. It was an alien. He missed his ship and he has to get in contact with his alien family in ten days or he would die. We asked him how he missed it and where he was from. All he said was in his world there is nine days in their week and for every day they traveled to a different country because their ship can fly as fast as the speed of light.

Distance from sun to: Time for light:

Mercury- 5.79xl0(lO)m 1.93xlO(2)s
Venus- 1.08xlO(11)m 3.6xlO(2)s
Earth- 1.5xlO(11)m 5xlO(2)s
mars- 2.28xlO(11)m 7.6xlO(2)s
Jupiter- 7.78xlO(11)m 2.59xlO(3)s
Saturn- 1.43xlO(l2)m 4.29xlC(3)s
Uranus- 2.87xlO(l2)m 9.5x1O(3)s
Neptune- 4.5xlO(l2)m 1.5xlO(4)s
Pluto- 5.91xlO(l2)m 1.97xl0(4)s

We go into a conversation and all of a sudden he let out a loud horrendous screech. We plugged our ears immediately. We then asked him how we could get in contact with his family and when he said, "By the screeching noise I just made." We asked when and where did he want to make this sound. He said, "At the top of the highest building."

So we took him there. Then he let out the loud horrendous sound. We didn't know how long it would take, but this is what we thought.

Distance from sun to: Time for sound

Mercury- 5.79xl0(lO)m 1.74xlO(8)s
Venus- 1.08xlO(11)m 3.3xlO(8)s
Earth- 1.5xlO(11)m 4.5xlO(8)s
mars- 2.28xlO(11)m 6.9xlO(8)s
Jupiter- 7.78xlO(11)m 2.34xlO(9)s
Saturn- 1.43xlO(l2)m 4.3xlO(9)s
Uranus- 2.87xlO(l2)m 8.6xlO(9)s
Neptune- 4.5xlO(l2)m 1.35xlO(lO)s
Pluto- 5.91xlO(l2)m 1.78xlO(10)s

Then it came. The glowing ship. In 60 seconds he was gone, but then again, maybe all this was just my imagination working overtime.

Kristina
(To e-mail Kristina with your response to her essay, click here.)


Melissa and Chris

This activity directly relates to the Harrison School Improvement Action Plan.

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