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
Shock (fluid dynamics) Shock (fluid dynamics) "Shock" is an abrupt discontinuity in the flow field and It occurs in flows when the local flow speed exceeds the local sound speed. More specifically, it is a flow whose Mach number exceeds 1. Shock is formed due to coalescence of various small pressure pulses. Sound waves are pressure waves and it is at the speed of the sound wave the disturbances are "communicated" in the medium. When an object is moving in a flow field the object sends out disturbances which propagate at the speed of sound and "adjusts" the remaining flow field accordingly. However,