Sound is faster than 640 MPH

Off-topic
1

One of the odd factoid’s I have been stuck with until today is that the “sound barrier”, is 640 MPH.

Perhaps that is true in high altitude jet runs, I don’t know. While researching stuff about air guns, I became curious about how fast the fps (feet per second) of these air guns related to the speed of sound. That lead me to this cool link. Just punch in the temp of your air in C degrees or F, and it gives you the speed of sound , and all the conversions are done for you. Put in a temperature and press Enter .

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/souspe.html

3

Doesn’t elevation or air density play a role also? The jets are flying pretty high so they have a slower speed to break if they’re going to do it at safe/reasonable altitudes.

The speed of sound in water is really-really fast, and gets faster as you go deeper.

4

becuase the transfer of energy becomes more efficent with the more particle density

5

c=330mps x (T/273K)^1/2

Yay, physics

6

at -543.4426229508197 degrees C, the speed of sound is zero. so theoretically you shouldn’t be able to hear anything

7

Actually around -273 , in Celsius degrees, nothing moves…
I guess you meant F degrees didn’t you?

8

OMG!

I thought I was going deaf until I turned up the heat!

9

No, that’s just where that calculation shows its limitations (over-simplified). You can enter any silly temperature figure, even if it’s impossible, and always get a result. You can make sound to backwards if you go down into the -600 C range :slight_smile:

Rob

10

Rob,

How long have you been so against Science?

You think you know better?

Billy

11

That would be so cool! you could hear the sound before it’s emmited:p

13

Under any and all atmospheric conditions, the speed of idiocy is much greater than the speed of sound.

14

then why do people say idiots are slow?

15

See above.

16

…and the speed of misinformation is several orders of magnitude greater than anything with ties to reality. Even moreso on the Internet.