Do sound waves travel better through water or air? Why?

Water.

Water is more dense than air.

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OK, believe it or not, in all media, sound waves have the possibility of traveling infinitely far...presuming the medium contains no boundaries. The intensity just decays off as intensity is an inverse square relation of the distance from the vibrating source of the wave. AND, as long as in both cases, the sound wave was produced within the medium of interest (not first produced by air and then transmitted to the water), the intensity at a common distance will be the same for both media. The only reason why sound seems to not travel as far in water, is that most sounds we consider sound are first produced within air. You would need a really well-designed speaker to produce the same sound sound deep within water, and water alone, as you would produce in air. Obviously the reason is that water causes electrical complications within the speaker. When sound changes media, intensity is lost, due to reflection and heat dissipation, and that is why walls of a building seem to block sound produced between neighboring rooms, even though sound travels A LOT faster in the wall materials than it does in the room air. ---------------------- One common misconception people have about sound traveling in a medium, is that they think density increases speed of sound. In reality, density decreases speed of sound. It is measures of stiffness, particularly bulk modulus (and other moduli in solids) which increase speed of sound. The fact is that due to their fundamental origins, stiffness and density are inherently linked by a general trend. If they were fully linked, all materials would have the same speed of sound...but there is variation. It is the square root of the ratio of the measure of stiffness of the material to the density of the material which determines sound speed. Consider Gold and Molybdenum. They both have the same bulk modulus, and perhaps the same of every other modulus. Thus, the measure of stiffness is common. However, Gold is much more dense than Molybdenum. The speed of sound is thus much less in Gold.

They travel faster though water. This is because the molecules of the water are closer together. Imagine it like this: Take your hand and fan it through the air. How much of a breeze did it make? Not much, right? Now, do the same thing in a tub of water. Water goes everywhere, right? That's because you came in contact with more molecules. Same basic principle.

Don't listen to the last answer. If you are asking about the speed, sound travels faster through water because it is denser. It travels through steel even faster. Think of it this way: If you are in a plane traveling faster than the speed of sound, you can still here noise because sound travels faster in the body of the plane than in the air around it. Hope this helps.

sound waves travel through the solid faster because the density of the substance of a solid [example= Lead [metal] which have a density of 11300.

here is an example

before world wars 2 , the people of Singapore relied on trains to transport food to them from Malaya. when the Japaneses invaded Malaya, train services were disrupted, causing grave concern that possible food shortages would arise. many people would gather and place their ear close to the railway tracks during the time of the day when the train set off .

the people can noticed about when the train approx. arrived due to the air travel faster in a solid

second faster is liquid then gas

Water molecules are more densely packed than those of air. Therefore the vibrations travel much faster.

Consider insulation in your home--how light and fluffy the stuff is--not dense, right. But it muffles sound because it can't travel through the insulation that well.

A lot of the answers are saying whether sound travels faster, but you're asking if it travels better.

Whale's mating calls can be heard on the other side of the world (north atlantic vs. south atlantic)

This is easy I learned this last week . Sound Waves travel faster through ear because its open space and the particles of the sound travel very fast. Compared to water the partiles are not going to travel as fast because water is liquid and sound cant travel very fast in this matter.

They travel best through air. Have you ever tried to talk underwater. People above you cant hear you so well. And neither can people underwater.

air becuase it's not as dense