AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT

Can you see sound?

In this week’s parsha, we are told that klal Yisrael “saw the sounds” of Matan Torah. Why is this such an unusual miracle? Seeing and hearing are very different. Visual information travels at around 186,282 miles per second in a vacuum—so fast that light from the sun takes about 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth. Sound, however, travels at about 767 miles per hour in air at room temperature. It cannot travel through a vacuum.

During a thunderstorm, you can see lightning before you hear the thunder, because light reaches you almost instantly, while sound takes a bit longer to travel the same distance.