Breaking the sound barrier

[mr_doubtfire]

In Stephen King's third novel, The Waste Lands, of his Dark Tower series, he refers to a train breaking the sound barrier. Now, I know a chap like King would do his research but is the "bang" which happens when the sound barrier is broken relative to where your standing,
example: If I heard it after the train past me, would someone else hear it, say 100 miles away after the train past them or, once the train breaks the sound barrier there is only one "bang" and that's it. King gives the reader the impression that the shock wave follows the train continuously. Remember, we're only talking fiction with regards to a train travelling at that speed.

[Answerprancer]

This might give you an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igy_MYJpVcQ

[Clanad]

A "boom" from any breaking of the sound barrier is constant as long as the object continues moving faster than the speed of sound. It's heard as a singular event by each hearer since they perceive the event relative to their position...

Actually, there are two "booms" produced by an aircraft... one more pronounced than the one following a nano second later. The latter is produced by the tailplane of the aircraft. Sometimes the're difficult to hear distinctly.

One would presume the fictional train would produce only one since it would probably be caused by the nose of the train causing the schock wave...

[mr_doubtfire]

Thanks, clanad. I knew King would do his research. Mr. D.

[Answerprancer]

...and another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5oomvIxE3I&feature=related

[ABerrant]

The so-called boom carpet would exist while the train's speed remained supersonic...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom

[jomifl]

not a nanosecond clanad, a 50 foot plane 50,000,000 nanoseconds approx ( i'm open to negotiation on the exact value)

[Clanad]

Actually. 'jomifl', the use of the term was intended as a figure of speech.

Living, as I do, in the western U.S., I rely a great deal on the famed (infamous?) British fondness for irony. More often than not, though, I find, when attempting to employ irony, I haven't an orison of being other than jaw-droppingly jejune in it's meretriciousness... the fault of which, is obviously mine!

[RATTER15]

I remember the double boom as concord flew overhead regularly.

[jomifl]

Hi Clanad, now if you had said a 'tad' or a 'split second' or a 'smidgin' or something equally vague then Ok but a nanosecond is a bit precise and I was a bit picky perhaps..

[scotman]

I was sitting on a roof near Princes St the day that the Scottish parliament opened. Seeing those Concorde turbines operating at low speed and pumping out piles of black ??%^&** confirmed for me that this was not a good idea.

[divegirl]

I never post in Science but do like to read here and expand my mind!
This got me looking at videos of the Sonic Boom and I found this.....

http://vimeo.com/9410195

Watch from the beginning or the action is at around 1.50......WOW!

Lisa x

[chakka35]

Where do/did you live, RATTER, to enable you to hear Concorde's boom regularly?

I heard it once when I was holidaying in Scotland about 40 miles inland. Suddenly there was this frightful bang which shook the granite walls of the hotel I had my back against, and resounded in my chest. Cattle in nearby fields went mad and birds for miles round rose squawking in the air.
That was Concorde doing test flights off the west coast.

Though I never had any doubts about it, that was a final indication that Concorde could never fly over or near to land, making the Atlantic her only viable route and her whole life loss-making. It is also why there will never be another SST flying in the atmosphere.

The Americans told us this but, for political reasons, we took no notice.

[237SJ]

chakka - it`s north devon. That is where concorde used to make landfall after crossing the Atlantic