eli5 How does the sound barrier break when planes fly? What is the boom? Plane accumulating wind or what is happening?

Question

eli5 How does the sound barrier break when planes fly? What is the boom? Plane accumulating wind or what is happening?

In: 9

Answer 1

You’re getting hung up on the word “break”. Nothing breaks. It’s a figure of speech, in this case meaning “to exceed”. Think about “breaking” somebody’s record.

What makes the boom is the compression waves hitting the listener’s ear. You hear it as a momentary boom because it passes you quickly; in reality, that compression wave is continuous and emanates from the aircraft as long as it remains supersonic.