Eli5: What is the sound barrier?
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Imagine you’re in a crowd. As you move through the crowd, people get out of your way. Everything is going great.
Then you start moving faster. People are having a harder and harder time getting out of your way.
At some point, you’re moving so fast that they *can’t* get out of your way. You’re just slamming into them so fast they have no chance to respond.
From the standpoint of the crowd, you’re proceeding from a system where things slowly re-shuffle around you to one where you’re sending massive shock waves through the crowd as you collide with someone faster than they can react which causes them to collide with someone faster than they can react and so forth.
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