Sound travels from a phone speaker to the ear of the person listening to the call. Sound waves are modeled by the image below. 1) What do the dots in the image represent? 2) How do sound waves travel through air to a person’s ear?

Remember the black and red dots represented in the below animation are not molecules. They are just markers enabling us to visualize the local displacement of air particles and so, the rise and fall of pressure within the wave medium.

The air is made up of many tiny particles. When sound is created, the air particles vibrate and collide with each other, causing the vibrations to pass between air particles. The vibrating particles pass the sound through to a person's ear and vibrate the ear drum. Light travels much faster than sound through air.

Explanation: