How much time will elapse between seeing lightening and hearing the thunder happening 8000 m from you?
The flash and the sound happen at the same time, but both the light and the sound have to travel to you, at different speeds.
For fun, or extra credit, you could calculate how long the light takes to travel 8000m, but it's small enough that we can ignore it, especially given the uncertainties in the speed of sound.
Sound travels through air at different speeds depending on the temperature and composition, but you can take 340 m/s as an easy to remember number (just over a km in 3 secs) unless your text specifies somethng different.
So at 340 m/s, hw long does it take the sound wave to travel 8000m?
To calculate the time between seeing lightning and hearing the thunder, we need to know the speed of sound and the speed of light.
The speed of sound is approximately 343 meters per second in dry air at 20 degrees Celsius (room temperature).
The speed of light is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum.
In this case, since we are assuming the distance between you and the lightning strike is 8000 meters, we can use these values to calculate the time.
First, we need to calculate the time it takes for the light from the lightning to reach you.
Time for light = Distance / Speed of light
= 8000m / 299,792,458 m/s
≈ 0.0267 seconds
Next, we need to calculate the time it takes for the sound of the thunder to reach you.
Time for sound = Distance / Speed of sound
= 8000m / 343 m/s
≈ 23.31 seconds
So, the total time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder happening 8000 meters from you would be approximately 0.0267 seconds for the light to reach you and 23.31 seconds for the sound to reach you.