Warp Speed Atmosphere...

[RobertScorpio]

A friend and I are having a debate. If a ship could achieve faster than light travel in our atmosphere, would it make some kind of sound, other than the sound barrier, which my friend also believes we wouldn't hear that either....


Whats the scoop???

Rob

 

[Timo]

Anything moving through the air, even at infinite speed, is bound to create sonic waves of some sort, eventually.

A ship warping through may hit the air too quickly for any conventional compression to take place - perhaps the deflectors just punch an "applecore" of air out of the atmosphere, without disturbing the air molecules outside the "core" in the slightest. But there'll still be a thunderclap from the filling of the hole with surrounding air, as nature abhors a vacuum (and isn't very fond of leafblowers, either). Not exactly like a sonic boom in its mechanisms of birth and propagation, but the effects would be more or less indistinguishable by a single observer on the ground.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

Anything moving through the air, even at infinite speed, is bound to create sonic waves of some sort, eventually.

A ship warping through may hit the air too quickly for any conventional compression to take place - perhaps the deflectors just punch an "applecore" of air out of the atmosphere, without disturbing the air molecules outside the "core" in the slightest. But there'll still be a thunderclap from the filling of the hole with surrounding air, as nature abhors a vacuum (and isn't very fond of leafblowers, either). Not exactly like a sonic boom in its mechanisms of birth and propagation, but the effects would be more or less indistinguishable by a single observer on the ground.

Timo Saloniemi

In short, my friend says, no sound at all..

rob

 

[Timo]

Sound would always be generated. Whether this sound would reach an observer down on the surface of Earth is another matter. Still, a wideband clap would have good odds of doing exactly that, quite regardless of how density gradients in the atmosphere reflected or bent the various component frequencies... Something would necessarily be heard.

Now, the final question is, how loud would it be? Even fairly large meteorites have plowed their way through the atmosphere and been seen (google for bolides) but not really heard.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

yeah..i see that now..thanks for the info!!

Rob