ABSTRACT
Enquires into the speed of sound In the 1600s French scientist and monk Marin Mersenne, interested in musical composition, considered the speed of sound and studied acoustics and vibrating strings. Robert Boyle (1627-91), the Irish theologian, soldier and physicist whose work on air pressure is well known, first measured the speed of sound in air in 1660. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) looked at the way sound travels, describing the relationship between the speed of sound and the density and compressibility of the medium in which it is travelling. So, for example, he knew that sound travels more readily in water than in air. Newton realised that sound can be interpreted as ‘pressure’ or thought of as pulses which are transmitted through adjacent particles of matter.
