Sonic Boom Basics Imagine you and your friends are at an air show. You've been waiting all day to catch a glimpse of the famous SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world. The announcer reports that it's now overhead--but you can't see it because it's flying so fast! After about a minute, you hear an enormous BOOM, louder than any thunder or fireworks you've ever heard! What do you think ...

Speed of Sound in Air The speed of sound in dry air is given approximately by where TC is the celsius temperature, so that at temperature C = F, the speed of sound is m/s = ft/s = mi/hr. This calculation is usually accurate enough, but for great precision one must examine the more general relationship for sound speed in gases. This sound speed does not apply to gases other than air, for example ...

Air is a gas, and a very important property of any gas is the speed of sound through the gas. Why are we interested in the speed of sound The speed of sound is actually the speed of transmission of a small disturbance through a medium. (Sound itself is a sensation created in the human brain in response to sensory inputs from the inner ear, which is sensitive to variations in pressure. We won't ...

Lesson 1: The Nature of a Sound Wave Mechanical Wave Longitudinal Wave Pressure Wave Lesson 2: Sound Properties and Their Perception Pitch and Frequency Intensity/Decibel Scale The Speed of Sound The Human Ear Lesson 3: Behavior of Sound Waves Interference and Beats The Doppler Effect and Shock Waves Boundary Behavior Reflection, Refraction, and Diffraction Lesson 4: Resonance and Standing Waves ...

Discovery Online Science ...

The Doppler Effect and Sonic Booms Daniel A. Russell, Kettering University The sudden change in pitch of a car horn as a car passes by (source motion) or in the pitch of a boom box on the sidewalk as you drive by in your car (observer motion) was first explained in 1842 by Christian Doppler. His Doppler Effect is the shift in frequency and wavelength of waves which results from a source moving ...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FORUM ON SONIC BOOM IMPACT RESEARCH For information on this full-scale schlieren image, click here, and then here. Objective: To exchange ideas and views on sonic-boom impact research, and to identify issues and topics of mutual interest to the participants. A series of talks and discussions organized by the faculty of the Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, University of ...

Seawater Sound Speed Calculator ...

The Speed of Sound The first analytical determination of the speed of sound was given by Isaac Newton in Proposition 49 of Book II of the Principia. For sea level air at a typical ambient temperature he computed a value of 968 ft/sec (increased to 979 ft/sec in the 2nd edition), which is too low by about 13%, the true value being about 1116 ft/sec. To account for this difference, Newton ...

What is a Sonic Boom Sonic boom is an impulsive noise similar to thunder. It is caused by an object moving faster than sound, about 750 miles per hour at sea level. An aircraft traveling through the atmosphere continuously produces air-pressure waves similar to the water waves caused by a ship's bow. When the aircraft exceeds the speed of sound, these pressure waves combine and form shock waves ...

Speed of Sound You can measure the speed of sound the same way you measure the speed of a runner, with a stopwatch on a closed track. Find a place where you can hear a good echo, and stand a known distance from whatever the sound is reflecting off of. Fire a starter's pistol and start the stopwatch. Stop the watch when you hear the echo. Divide 2 times the distance (it's a round trip) by the ...