sound barrier
Also called sonic barrier, transonic barrier. (not in technical use) a hypothetical barrier to flight beyond the speed of sound, so postulated because aircraft undergo an abruptly increasing drag force induced by compression of the surrounding air when traveling near the speed of sound.
Idioms about sound barrier
break the sound barrier, to travel faster than the speed of sound.
Origin of sound barrier
1Words Nearby sound barrier
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use sound barrier in a sentence
At the time, nobody knew if challenging the sound barrier meant that the sound barrier would slap back, ripping to pieces any plane that tried to defy it.
The pilot is Chuck Yeager, once again cracking the sound barrier, 50 years to the minute after he became the first man to do so.
Chuck Yeager has died at 97, but the legacy of his record-breaking flight lives on | Rob Verger | December 8, 2020 | Popular-ScienceThis excursion, his ninth powered flight in the plane, would mark the moment that wrote the test pilot into the history books as the first person to break the sound barrier.
Chuck Yeager has died at 97, but the legacy of his record-breaking flight lives on | Rob Verger | December 8, 2020 | Popular-ScienceWhen the recently late daredevil Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier in 1947, observers knew it from the thunderous boom that rang out over the Mojave Desert, marking the feat.
Google and China duke it out over ‘quantum supremacy’ | rhhackettfortune | December 8, 2020 | FortuneIt was called, rather dramatically, breaking the sound barrier.
Virgin Galactic’s Flight Path to Disaster: A Clash of High Risk and Hyperbole | Clive Irving | November 1, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
Pawel Szaniawski talks to the extreme athlete about the stunt, its purpose, and what it will feel like to break the sound barrier.
Felix Baumgartner Talks Space Jump, Red Bull’s ‘Stratos,’ Kittinger’s Record, and More | Pawel Szaniawski | October 9, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTYou have heard the sound barrier, of a plane breaking the sound barrier, bang, bang?
Warren Commission (2 of 26): Hearings Vol. II (of 15) | The President's Commission on the Assassination of President KennedyAgain, I am going to refer to it as like a plane going through a sound barrier; bang, bang.
Warren Commission (2 of 26): Hearings Vol. II (of 15) | The President's Commission on the Assassination of President KennedyEven in this era of sophisticated flight there have been those who said the sound barrier would never be broken.
The Practical Values of Space Exploration | Committee on Science and Astronautics
British Dictionary definitions for sound barrier
(not in technical usage) a hypothetical barrier to flight at or above the speed of sound, when a sudden large increase in drag occurs: Also called: sonic barrier, transonic barrier
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for sound barrier
The sharp increase in drag experienced by aircraft approaching the speed of sound. Also called sonic barrier
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for sound barrier
The sudden increase in air resistance that occurs when an aircraft approaches the speed of sound. This is also called the sonic barrier.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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