Rope Sound

Sound waves can’t travel through space because it has nothing to travel through or vibrate off of correct? Theoretically if two people were in space and if each one held one end of a rope, could they then feel or here some sort of noise or vibration if one talked because there would be a physical connection between them for sound vibrations to travel through? I know that can’t be right so if you could just explain. ty
- Matt

As you say, sound consists of vibrations in matter. Without some kind of matter, there can’t be sound. A rope should in fact work to transmit sound. In fact, as kids we used to play with tin-can telephones, which were connected by a string. The sound did travel along the string. Having the string in vacuum wouldn’t hurt.

Mike W.

(published on 10/22/2007)