Why does sound travel better through wood than it does water?

Answer 1

Exactly what do you mean by "better"? Do you mean farther, faster, louder over the same distance, or something else? Either way, I believe that sound can travel further through most solids than it can through water because the molecules of a solid are packed together much tighter than those of water, meaning that when a sound wave passes through, the molecules of the solid do not have to move as far as those in water to transfer the energy of the sound wave to the next molecule. It is much like dominoes falling. If you stack the dominoes closer together, the same number will fall sooner than dominoes that are stacked further apart. But, it does require more energy to get the dominoes to fall if they are stacked too close, and I think that the same thing applies to sound waves, although I am not sure. But, if the density of the medium (substance the sound is passing through) determines speed of sound travel, then technically sound should travel faster through water than wood, because as everybody knows, (almost) all wood floats, which means that wood is less dense. If it can travel farther through wood, then that might make more sense, seeing as the molecules of wood are stuck in place and less of the energy from the sound wave is wasted by redirecting the movement of a molecule if it wasn't already going in the right direction, as may happen in water. That's my best explanation, but I would advise that you double check somewhere else as well.