What is sound?

Sound is what we hear when things vibrate and move the air around them.

When you speak, your voice makes your throat and mouth vibrate, like when you shake a jump rope up and down. These vibrations push the air next to them, which then pushes the air after that, all the way until it reaches someone else’s ears. That's how sound travels through the air.

Inside our ears, there are tiny parts called eardrums. When sound waves hit the eardrum, they make it wiggle, just like when a breeze makes a flag flutter. These wiggles travel to our brain, and then we know what the sound is, whether it's a laugh, music, or someone calling us for dinner.

Imagine you're playing with a drum. When you hit it, it thumps, and the air around it moves, that’s how your friend across the room hears the thump too!