Eli5: Why does a sonic boom occur when you break the sound barrier?
In: Physics
The sound speed of air is effectively the average speed that the air molecules are bouncing around at. Information is therefore transferred at the sound speed of the medium. When you’re going supersonic, the information that an object is coming towards the molecules can’t be transferred fast enough so the molecules can’t get out of the way and end up colliding with one another. This is what results in a sonic boom and shockwave.
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