August
11
Sound of lighting,equals breaking the sound barrier?
Author: admin Category: 5
I feel that the cracking sound of thunder is energy moving so fast as to break the sound barrier. What do you think?
Everybody above is wrong. A lightning bolt generates great heat, which causes the air around it to expand forcefully for just a second. Then the hot air bubble collapses back to atmospheric pressure. None of this happens at the speed of sound.
But the collapse produces a thunder clap just as clapping your hands or slamming a door creates a bang. The sound, being a sound, travels at the speed of sound, but it is in no way related to a sonic boom. Two very different things.
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August 11th, 2009
That is quite right - lightning travels at several times the speed of sound in air and thunder is the sonic boom (it rolls because lightning isn’t a small thing, a bolt can be several miles long).
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August 11th, 2009
ya lightning goes faster than the speed of sound, and breaks the sound barrier. why do you think thunder comes after lightning?
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August 11th, 2009
Lightning doesn’t travel anywhere, essentially. It occurs in one spot. The light that you see from it travels at the speed of light, of course.
The sonic boom is the result of air expanding faster than the speed of sound when the lightning occurs, due to the immense heat from the lightning.
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August 11th, 2009
Everybody above is wrong. A lightning bolt generates great heat, which causes the air around it to expand forcefully for just a second. Then the hot air bubble collapses back to atmospheric pressure. None of this happens at the speed of sound.
But the collapse produces a thunder clap just as clapping your hands or slamming a door creates a bang. The sound, being a sound, travels at the speed of sound, but it is in no way related to a sonic boom. Two very different things.
References :
August 11th, 2009
Although they sound similar, they are not caused by the same thing, in any way shape or form.
Aviophage is quite correct
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