the.com/sonic boom
The sound of a plane arriving everywhere faster than its own apology.
means The explosive crack heard when an object travels faster than the speed of sound, created by the shockwave of compressed air trailing behind it.
from A 20th-century compound, plain and descriptive: 'sonic' from Latin 'sonus' (sound), and 'boom' an echoic word imitating the deep sound itself, used in English since the 1600s for low, resonant noises like cannon fire or surf. The phrase entered common use alongside the rise of supersonic flight, when pilots and engineers needed a name for the thunderclap a plane leaves behind once it outruns its own sound waves.
- actual cause
- a shockwave cone, not a single moment of crossing
- misconception
- it happens once at mach 1, not continuously after
- continuous event
- ground hears it the whole supersonic flight, not one bang
- concorde problem
- booms over land got it banned from overland routes