If you are in a jet traveling just under the speed of sound and you throw a tennis ball

[Quixote1818]

toward the front of the plane so that it is traveling over the earth faster than the speed of sound even though the jet isn't. Will there be a sonic boom produced by the tennis ball?

Anyone?

[flvegan]

1. No.

The cabin is pressurized, so the ball isn't creating the pressure things that need to be generated in front and back to create the boom.

I think.

[Quixote1818]

4. I was thinking that it would need to be traveling 750 mph faster than anything

else in the jet because sound is already traveling at almost the speed of sound inside the jet. I thought it had more to do with sound waves rather than pressure. But I am certainly no expert.

[flvegan]

5. Considering recent events, you should've made it a shoe, not a ball.

Like:

If you were on Air Force One, going just under the speed of sound, and threw a shoe at Bush...

[Quixote1818]

8. Thats pretty cute. Whish I had thought of that. nt

[QueenOfCalifornia]

12. Fivegan is nothing

if not cute.

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. As if they'd let you bring a tennis ball on a plane

You could put someone's EYE out!



:spank:

[surrealAmerican]

3. Boom or no boom, the stewardesses will probably assume ...

... you are a terrorist, and the tennis ball is an explosive device, and you will spend the rest of the flight tied up, and be arrested upon landing.

[RandomThoughts]

6. If you were in an exposed plane, like a bi-plane

and you were going that fast,

Then the ball would not create the sonic boom, your arm would.

[Quixote1818]

10. Good example. I wonder what that would do to your arm? nt

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. no, because it is relative to you

you can't throw it at 750mph, can you?

do you hear the sonic booms? why?

[Quixote1818]

9. Is it relative to me or relative to the the sound inside the plane?

It has to be traveling 750 mph faster than the sound in the plane, right?

[skygazer]

11. No, but the Labrador Retriever in the next seat would fetch it

:rofl:

[Dangerously Amused]

13. No,

...because the tennis ball isn't traveling faster than the speed of sound. It is traveling only as fast as you threw it.

[Orsino]

14. Everything on earth is traveling at eighteen miles per second around the sun...

...and everything at the Equator is traveling over a thousand miles per hour.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. No, because the air it's moving through is moving almost the speed of sound in same direction

You'd have to throw the ball the speed of sound relative to the airplane, which is still approx. 750 mph.

[kayakjohnny]

16. Is it one of those old retro yellow ones, or the newer flourescent green ones.

Not that it matters, but just helps with the visualization.

[Deja Q]

17. No, because I don't play tennis, I don't often fly in jet planes, and I'd rather be

asking every passenger if they want to get into the mile high club with me. :crazy: