History
Some common whips such as the bullwhip or sparewhip are able to move faster than sound: the tip of the whip breaks the sound barrier and causes a sharp crackâliterally a sonic boom. Firearms since the 19th century have generally had a supersonic muzzle velocity.
The sound barrier may have been first breached in nature some 150 million years ago. Some paleobiologists report that, based on computer models of their biomechanical capabilities, certain long-tailed dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus and Diplodocus may have possessed the ability to flick their tails at supersonic velocities, possibly used to generate an intimidating booming sound. This finding is theoretical and disputed by others in the field. Meteorites entering the Earth's atmosphere usually, if not always, descend faster than sound.
Read more about this topic: Sound Barrier
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—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
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—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)