A person is standing at the sea shore. An observer on the ship which is anchored in between a vertical cliff and the person on the shore fires a gun. the person on the shore hears two sounds, 2 seconds and 3 seconds after seeing the smoke of the fired gun. If the speed of sound in the air is 320 `m s^(-1)`-, then calculate :

the distance between the cliff and the observer on the ship.

Explanation

The second sound heard by the person at shore will be the echo heard after reflection from the cliff. Since sound takes 2 s to reach from the observer to the person, so the time taken by the echo of fire to reach the observer will be ta = 3 - 2 = 1 s. Let `d_2` be the distance between the observer and cliff. Then `(2d_2)/( t_1) =V or d_2 = (Vt_2)/(2) = ( 320 xx 1 )/( 2 ) =160 m`