system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What determines the speed of sound? Why is it not equal to the average speed of a particle in the given medium?

Today I learned, that the average speed of gas molecules in the air is around 500 m/s (at a temperature of about 30° C). I thought soundwaves are particles bumping into each other progressively. This seems to be wrong of course... But what does determine the speed of sound, if not the average speed of the particles themselves?
gpt
The speed of sound is given by c^(2) = dP/dρ, where P is the pressure of the medium, and ρ is the density. (And it should be a partial derivative, not total.)

In other words, it tells you how much the pressure changes when you change the density a little bit.