
When discussing the Doppler effect of a moving source and a stationary observer, the only cases we considered were cases where the source was moving at speeds that were less than the speed of sound. Describe the difference between sonic booms and shock waves.The Mach number is the speed of the source divided by the speed of sound: M vs v. The speed of sound in air is low, because air is compressible. But now planes routinely fly faster than the speed of sound.

The greater the density of a medium, the slower the speed of sound. The more rigid (or less compressible) the medium, the faster the speed of sound. Explain the mechanism behind sonic booms The speed of sound in a medium is determined by a combination of the medium’s rigidity (or compressibility in gases) and its density. At 0 Centigrade and 1.013 x 105 Newtons per square meter (normal atmospheric pressure), the speed of sound is 331.5 meters/sec, i.e.where is the adiabatic index, R 8.31 J/mol K is the gas constant, T K is the absolute temperature in kelvins, and M is the molar mass.

By the end of this section, you will be able to: Eventually they merge into a single shock wave, which travels at the speed of sound, a critical speed known as Mach 1, and is approximately 1,127 km/h (700 mph) at sea level and 20 ☌ (68 ☏). In an ideal gas (see The Kinetic Theory of Gases ), the equation for the speed of sound is.
