When they were first trying to break the sound barrier in planes and achieve a sonic boom, how did they know something would actually happen considering they’d never done it before?

Question

When they were first trying to break the sound barrier in planes and achieve a sonic boom, how did they know something would actually happen considering they’d never done it before?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The first sonic boom was not created by aircraft.
The first creature that created them was likely dinosaurs where the tip of a long tail can move faster than the speed of sound just like the tip in a bullwhip. It is something similar to a bullwhip that a human first broke the speed of sound.

If you to more modern times then you have firearms where a bullet that travels supersonic make a noise that a subsonic bullet do not. This was known
For aircraft, the tips of propellers can move faster than the speed of sound and it produces sound and can damage the bladed. the propeller’s speed tends to be limited so the tips are subsonic.

Rockets had broken the sound barrier before aircrafts.

So that there is the special effect if you travel faster then the speed of sound was well-known at the time by the people that build the first supersonic aircraft.

So the sound barrier had been broken for a long time just not in aircraft where wings and other control surfaces interact with the aircraft body in a complex and new way that can make a controlled flight hard.