Sonic boom and the "rise time" of the shock which makes the boom seem louder. On most aircraft designs the characteristic distance is about , meaning that below this altitude the sonic boom will be "softer". However, the drag at this altitude or below makes supersonic travel particularly inefficient, which poses a serious problem. The pressure from sonic booms caused by aircraft often are a few pounds per square foot. A vehicle flying at greater altitude will generate lower pressures on the ground, because the shock wave reduces in intensity as it spreads out away from the vehicle, but the sonic booms
Speed of sound of glass or optical fiber. Thus, the sound is confined in essentially two dimensions. In two dimensions the intensity drops in proportion to only the inverse of the distance. This allows waves to travel much further before being undetectably faint. A similar effect occurs in the atmosphere. Project Mogul successfully used this effect to detect a nuclear explosion at a considerable distance. Speed of sound The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. At , the speed of sound in air is about 343 meters per