Are sound and light waves basically the same thing?

Light and sound are totally different things, light is a electromagnetic wave of the electromagnetic spectrum, see here http://mail.jsd.k12.ca.us/bf/bflibrary/images/elec...

Sound is merely a vibration moving through atoms, sound wouldn't travel through a vacuum, light would.

Also if sound and light were the same things they should have to travel at the same speed, which is clearly not ( light 299 000km/s and sound 343m/s)

they are totally different things.

Sound is what we call a mechanical and a longitudinal wave.

Light is a transverse electromagnetic wave.

The difference:

Well know that sound cannot travel through a vacuum, (Try to call out in space) can only be transferred by a medium, particles travel back and forth along the same direction as the transfer and only moves at the speed of 340m/s in normal conditions.

Light on the other hand can travel through vacuums at a much higher speed (3x10^8 m/s). It is created by accelerations of charge and has much higher energy. Also, as a transverse wave, the movement of the wave is perpendicular to the transfer.

About Mars, tell him he's been watching too many movies: Total Recall.

We can. If you have ever seen an amplifier of decent quality then it will usually have an 'optical' (as in fibre optic) in and out. This is used for digital, high quality audio such as Dolby 5.1. This information is transmitted by light waves, as can be told if you look down the end of an optical cable while it is connected - you will see red light. The reason that we use radio waves and not light waves on our radios (I am going to assume that the radios are digital) is that the frequencies of the radio waves mean that they can bounce around objects and travel through the atmosphere while retaining the information, whereas light would not. It's a matter of what frequency is better for the job. In this case radio waves are more effective and cheaper to generate.

First answerer (at time I post this at least!) has answered first part very well, I'll attack the "boiling" bit.

Basically, things don't just boil at certain temperatures, the pressure also comes into play. For example, water boils at a lower temperature when one scales a mountain. Pressure cookers pressurise the contents and thus water boils at a higher temperature inside them (usually around 200C or there abouts IIRC).

Thus, even though mars is frigidly cold (about the temperature of the antarctic or colder IIRC), the low pressure atmosphere means that boiling points are much, much lower there.

he claims to have extensive knowledge on space and astronomy...

Well, he doesn't even have a level of information that a freshman taking physics / astronomy would have ...

The wiki page explains it some more:

Sound waves are a movement of a medium in a rhythmic fashion. It can be air, a string on guitar, or a wine glass that is rubbed on the rim. IN any case, the movement of a particular medium in back and forth motion is called mechanical wave, most of which produce sound. Ocean waves are another example of a mechanical wave, which is the back and forth movement of the medium of water. Sound waves and ocean waves are comparable, but sound a light waves are not.

Light waves are a part of the electromagnetic spectrum which includes x-rays, gamma rays (radiation), visible light, infrared, microwave, and radio waves. The main difference between mechanical waves (i.e. sound) and electromagnetic waves (i.e. light) is that electromagnetic waves require no medium to continue their path of travel. They can travel through the vacuum of space from the sun to earth, which is untrue of sound waves.

Electromagnetic waves are the result of the movement of discrete packages of energy called "photons", which for reasons we still do not know act as both particles and waves. For that reason, they are capable of being their own medium. The amount of energy in each photon decides the frequency of the wave, and within a certain range, we can see those waves visible light.

So, you are correct. Sound waves and light waves are very different types of waves, although they do both share common properties of waves.

NO, light is transverse wave and sound wave is longitudinal. sound waves cannot be polarised however the light wave can polarised