What is special about the speed of sound? What causes a sonic boom?
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If you will allow me to anthropomorphize air:
Below the speed of sound, the air can “see” that an object (car, airplane, etc) is coming. So the air will start to move a little, preparing for the object, before the object even gets there.
Above the speed of sound, the air has no idea an object is coming until — POW — it is suddenly hit by something. The air being suddenly slapped out of the way produces a shock wave.
While it is not the same phenomenon, the shock wave that causes a sonic boom looks like the wave that formed by a boat (but the shock wave is in 3D, making a cone instead of the 2D “V” shape of the wave). Like the wave from a boat, the shock wave will travel out a long way, and if you are standing on the ground you will hear the shock wave as a sonic boom when it passes you.
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