If you were traveling at the speed of sound would you hear anything?

Question

If you were traveling at the speed of sound would you hear anything?

Answer 1

I doubt it.  If you are slightly slower than sound, perhaps.  But at the same speed the sound is traveling with you, and can not catch up. Might be interesting to look up 'mach 1'.

Peace.

Answer 2

Yes actually.

Answer 3

Yes, but not in the usual way.

Imagine yourself in a jet plane traveling forward at exactly Mach 1 (the speed of sound).  The sound emitted by your engine would also be moving forward at the speed of sound, but because it was emitted behind you, it would never catch up with you THROUGH THE AIR.  I emphasized the last three words because sound travels at different speeds in different materials.  It tends to travel much faster through solids (like the body of your jet) than it does through the air, so you would be able to hear the engine, but only through the frame of the jet.

Then there are outside sources of sound.  No sound emitted from behind you could catch up to you, but sound coming from ahead of you would impact you.  Because of its greater apparent requency (as measured by you), the pitch of oncoming sound would be greatly increased.  If somebody were singing a note that had a frequency of 440 Hz and you were racing toward them at Mach 1, their note would hit your ears at a combined speed of Mach 2.  That would cause the apparent pitch to double to 880 Hz, meaning that you would hear the note one octave higher than it was actually being sung.

Sound coming at you from the side SHOULD be relatively unchanged.

So there you have it....traveling at Mach 1 and above DOES alter how sound gets to your ears, but it doesn't stop it from getting there (except for sound coming from behind you).  I hope that helps.  Good luck!

Answer 4

Yes. You wouldn't hear the sound of the aircraft but you can hear your own voice!