Word: shocks
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...matter how he tried, he could not pull out of the dive. Sometimes he did not live to tell the tale. Sometimes the demon let go just in time, and the shaken pilot got back to his base to describe his hair-raising experience. Aerodynamicists explained it as "shock waves...
When a body moves with the speed of sound, the air does not yield smoothly. Instead, hard shock waves (sound waves) form. These are no gentle whispers; they are tough, speeding shells of compressed air, powerful enough under certain conditions to tear an airplane to bits...
Even flying much slower than sound, airplanes can run afoul of shock waves. The air crowding past them has to go faster to get around their curved surfaces. If, in its hurry, the air hits the speed of sound, shock waves form locally. Good design has steadily raised the speed at which an airplane can fly without trouble from local shock waves. But there is a limit: the speed of sound itself.* At this critical speed, an airplane's motion is sure to generate shock waves...
...Piece. Silently and smoothly the X-1 cut away from the B29. For an instant it drove forward and downward. Then Chuck turned on the nitrogen pressure and fired the lox and alcohol in one of the rocket chambers. A spurt of white dots (visible shock waves) spurted out behind and grew into a long plumelike "contrail" (condensed water vapor...
...debate was supposed to give the young men an opportunity to exercise wit in reopening a question which less emancipated persons had come to regard as closed. Young men like to shock their elders, but these young men really weren't very imaginative in choosing their topic. They could have created a much more profound stir in their community if they had discussed the question, "Resolved, that Harvard University was a mistake." There is much to be said on both sides. --Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1949. Thank you, Colonel McCormick. And now, the affirmative...