Sound requires a physical medium to propagate through

Evidence

At a physical level sound is simply a mechanical disturbance of the medium, which may be air, or a solid, liquid or other gas. However, such a simplistic description is not very useful as it provides no information about the way this disturbance travels, or any of its characteristics other than the requirement for a medium in order for it to propagate. What is required is a more accurate description which can be used to make predictions of the behavior of sound in a variety of contexts. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 23

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Establishes the foundational definition of sound as a mechanical disturbance requiring a medium.

Related

• Sound requires a physical medium and is fundamentally a mechanical disturbance (similarity 0.98)
• Sound is a mechanical wave requiring a medium and a vibrating source (similarity 0.91)
• Most sound arises from vibrating mechanical objects in a medium (similarity 0.87)
• A sound signal is the registered time-varying vibration of a medium (similarity 0.84)
• A medium’s density and elasticity relate sound pressure to particle velocity. (similarity 0.82)
• Aristotle described sound as a spread of air impulses (similarity 0.82)
• Any sound can function as noise depending on the listener (similarity 0.81)
• Loudness as perception can never be directly measured physiologically (similarity 0.81)
• Sound pressure is the small pressure deviation caused by a sound wave (similarity 0.81)
• Medium-specific sound transmission across solids, liquids, and gas yields distinct sonic ecologies. (similarity 0.81)
• Sound propagation depends on interactions with objects and the medium (similarity 0.81)
• Sound propagation can be modeled as coupled masses and springs (similarity 0.81)
• Sound intensity is a vector describing the directional flow of sound energy. (similarity 0.80)
• ‘Sound level’ is a deliberately vague unit-free term for sound size (similarity 0.80)
• A barely audible sound moves air only a few atoms’ width (similarity 0.80)