In some countries, like US, it is against the law for the airplane to fly faster-than-sound because of the sonic boom. Until recently there were two commercial supersonic planes, Concorde and Tu-144, but ever since they retired, we, common people, travel only at subsonic speeds. These days supersonic airplanes are used for the military and research purposes only. He broke the sound barrier in Octoon Bell X-1 aircraft. The first human to do just so was American test pilot Chuck Yeager. A special design of the aircraft and flying technique are needed to “push through” the so-called speed barrier and get ahead of the sound waves. That leads to the increased atmospheric pressure and drag and that, in turn, makes further acceleration really difficult. When the speed of the plane gets close to the speed of the sound waves it emits, the waves start to pile up. As the plane goes faster, it starts to catch up with its waves. A plane makes lots of noise, right? The sound waves from an airplane propagate in all directions, ahead of the plane, behind it and sideways. reaching the speed of sound and travelling faster than the sound, was physically impossible for an object like an airplane or car. Good job, Newton! Faster than sound?Īs the speed of sound has a finite (and not so very great after all) value, in theory, an object that makes that sound can catch up with its own “noise” and even go faster.įor quite a long time though many researchers thought that going sonic and supersonic, i.e. His calculations were just about 15% off the modern value. After Newton measured the length of the corridor, he easily worked out how fast the sound traveled. He clapped his hands in the corridor of Trinity College in Cambridge and noted the time it took him to hear the Eco. Isaac Newton was the first to measure the speed of sound in the air in 1686. The speed of sound in air at temperature 20 degrees at sea level is 767 miles per hour. Therefore, the “speed of sound” in not a fixed number! When we talk about the speed of sound we usually mean the sound travelling through the air. As you can imagine, the value of the speed of sound depends on what kind of medium the sound is passing through: it goes faster in liquids and slower in gases. The speed of sound is…well…a speed at which the sound waves travel through a medium, such as air, water or solid things. What is faster, sound or light? You can easily answer this question by simply watching the lightning strike: you will always first see it, then hear, never the other way around! But how fast the sound can travel? And can anything go even faster? Let’s investigate! Speed of sound If it goes even faster, faster than light, it explodes.” “A rocket goes into space at a speed of sound.
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