Xref: utzoo sci.misc:815 sci.physics:2853
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rutgers!princeton!mind!greg
From: greg@mind.UUCP (greg Nowak)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.physics
Subject: Re: differences between sound and light waves?
Message-ID: <1769@mind.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 88 04:29:02 GMT
References: <413@prlb2.UUCP> <4110@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <6917@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: greg@mind.UUCP (greg Nowak)
Organization: Cabal of Fools
Lines: 21
Keywords: macroscopic behaviour

In article <6917@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> csm@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP () writes:

}A stick breaking under foot generates a (sonic) shock wave (chaotic behavior
}due to parts of the stick moving faster than the speed of sound ?) -- I
}don't think there is analogous light behaviour in the everyday world
}(aurora borealis?).

I doubt that the generation of an aurora borealis involves anything
moving faster than the speed of light. :-)

Arthur C. Clarke used to give a puzzle: "What was the first man-made
object to move faster than the speed of sound, and when did it first
happen?" 


The answer, of course, is several thousand years ago, when the first
whip was cracked. 

-- 


                              greg