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If a tree falls in a forest and there is nobody there to hear it and no sound level meter to record the event, did it make a sound?

By the description of sound it needs a receiver to be perceived. In this case one cannot say that it cannot be considered sound due to the lack of a person or a SLM nearby.

The sound energy has been produced and has propagated and possibly even been listened by the animals in the forest. It would be the same sort of analogy for people on the dark side of a planet on a no moon day.

Just because one can’t see the suns light on a no moon day, we can’t say that the sun didn’t produce light during that time.

So in my perspective the tree did make a sound when it fell. For all we know the sound waves have propagated through space and is on its way to an alien listener lightyears away. - Abraham B.

The space between your ears

Heard the birds in tears

For their forest divine

Is a place without fears - Fouad K.

The answer is no. Sound has to do with perception. When the tree falls, it makes vibrations but with no ears, no auditory vibrations, no perception, no sound. - Thomas L.

In physics it is enough that the audible wave be produced; "sound is a vibration that typically propagates as an audible wave of pressure, through a transmission medium such as air, water or other materials."

In human physiology and psychology sound does not exist unless a brain receives it; "sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound