The speed of light is known to be nearly instantaneous, as you can tell by turning on a light, and there is never a visible delay regardless of the distance between you and the light source. On the other hand, the speed of sound is far slower, and you can experience this by being in a large open area where you can hear the delay of your echo bouncing off distant rocks before it travels back to you. When light and sound are being perceived together, this discrepancy in speeds can deceive you.
The speed of sound can be visualized by comparing it to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. The span between both towers is 1280 meters, which is a great distance to see how quickly sound can get from one side to the other. If a bullet were shot from one tower to the other, which is some nine millimeter bullets that travel the speed of sound at 343 meters every second, it would reach the second tower in 3.7 seconds. This is what the speed of sound looks like bouncing from tower to tower in real-time.
On the other hand, the speed of light is a lot quicker and can be visualized by comparing it to an object as large as the planet Earth. The Earth’s circumference is 40,075 kilometers at its equator, which is nothing for the speed of light as it is able to circle the Earth seven and a half times every second. If we zoom out to see the speed of light traveling between the Earth and the Moon, we can see that the Moon is 384,400 kilometers away, and it takes the speed of light only 1.28 seconds to reach it.
These drastic variations in speeds can be experienced up close, like watching someone play basketball. You can hear and see the ball hit the ground at the same time without a delay. But if you’re far enough away, the speed of sound has enough time to begin to visibly fall behind the speed of light.
In conclusion, the speed of sound is considerably slower than the speed of light. While sound can travel from one tower on the Golden Gate Bridge to the other in 3.7 seconds, light can travel to the Moon, back to Earth, and to the Moon once again in the same amount of time. This demonstrates the vast difference in speed between sound and light.