Why does my voice echo in a large empty room?

Question

Why does my voice echo in a large empty room?

3 Answers

Answer Question

Answer 1

Because your voice is bouncing off the walls. When there is carpet and furniture in the room your sound is assorbed.in to the object in the room when it does this it (your voice) doenst have far to travel before reaching the walls it bounces off the furniture,etc in the room. Take the objects out and your voice travels further hitting the walls bare floor and it makes it sound like and echo because there is nothing there to bounce the sound or asorb the sound off of.

Answer 2

You'll be able to do this in your own home if you have access to a room that isn't too full of things. You'll realise that the more things that you put inside it, the less echo-ey the room will be! As mentioned by others here, carpets, fabrics and other items will actually absorb the sound waves that are bouncing around when you speak in a room. In a canyon or a valley, your voice is actually bouncing off the steep cliffs and reverberating back to you!

Answer 3

Old question, but it has an interesting answer; to rephrase the question, "How far away must a sound reflecting surface be so that you can hear an echo":

The velocity of sound in dry air is approximately 343 m/s at a temperature of 25 °C. Therefore, the reflecting object must be more than 17.2m from the sound source for echo to be perceived by a person located at the source.

(Quora)