I know it comes from breaking the sound barrier, but why a boom instead of complete silence?
I have the understanding it creates a physical wave too.
Bonus questions: Does the pilot hear it?
Can the same thing be achieved underwater?
Related: I know the speed of sound is faster under water, does any reaction happen theoretically at the air speed of sound underwater?
In: 310
This is funny, because I’ve been reading and looking a bit into Cherenkov radiation and how that’s essentially a photonic boom, which sounds impossible: nothing can travel faster than light, right? Well, when light travels through a medium, like water, it’s substantially slowed. Turns out that some particles can travel faster than light can in water. That creates a photonic boom. Here’s a helpful gif that illustrates the effect. When you hear a sonic boom, what you’re hearing is that diagonal line—all the circles of sound colliding with one another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cherenkov_radiation-animation.gif
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