Sonic boom faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a sonic boom. The whip is probably the first human invention to break the sound barrier. A bullwhip tapers down from the handle section to the cracker. The cracker has much less mass than the handle section. When the whip is sharply swung, the energy is transferred down the length of the tapering whip. Goriely and McMillen showed that the physical explanation is complex, involving the way that a loop travels down a tapered filament under tension. Sonic boom A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created whenever
Faster-than-light oscillator ticking too fast. In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object the speed of light, or for a massive object to move the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability. Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature, while others have disputed the possibility. Mechanical equations to describe hypothetical exotic matter which