Sound Barrier

The sound barrier, in aerodynamics, is the point at which an object moves from transonic to supersonic speed. The term, which occasionally has other meanings, came into use during World War II, when a number of aircraft started to encounter the effects of compressibility, a collection of several unrelated aerodynamic effects that "struck" their aircraft like an impediment to further acceleration. By the 1950s, new aircraft designs routinely "broke" the sound barrier. At sea level the speed of sound is 340 meters per second which is about 760 miles per hour.

Read more about Sound Barrier:  History

Famous quotes containing the words sound and/or barrier:

    the children call, and I
    Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
    Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
    Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
    The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
    And murmuring of innumerable bees.’
    Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)

    ... social evils are dangerously contagious. The fixed policy of persecution and injustice against a class of women who are weak and defenseless will be necessarily hurtful to the cause of all women.
    —Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)