| shock wave | |
| —n | |
| 1. | sonic boom See also shock tube Often shortened to: shock a region across which there is a rapid pressure, temperature, and density rise, usually caused by a body moving supersonically in a gas or by a detonation |
| 2. | a feeling of shock, horror, surprise, etc that affects many people as it spreads through a community |
| 3. | the effect created on a queue of moving cars in the lane of a motorway when one car brakes suddenly and the cars behind have to brake as well, causing cars to slow down, sometimes for miles behind the first braking car |
| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
| a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes. |
| shock wave
A large-amplitude wave formed by the sudden compression of the medium through which the wave moves. Shock waves can be caused by explosions or by objects moving through a fluid at a speed greater than the speed of sound. |
shock wave
strong pressure wave in any elastic medium such as air, water, or a solid substance, produced by supersonic aircraft, explosions, lightning, or other phenomena that create violent changes in pressure. Shock waves differ from sound waves in that the wave front, in which compression takes place, is a region of sudden and violent change in stress, density, and temperature. Because of this, shock waves propagate in a manner different from that of ordinary acoustic waves. In particular, shock waves travel faster than sound, and their speed increases as the amplitude is raised; but the intensity of a shock wave also decreases faster than does that of a sound wave, because some of the energy of the shock wave is expended to heat the medium in which it travels. The amplitude of a strong shock wave, as created in air by an explosion, decreases almost as the inverse square of the distance until the wave has become so weak that it obeys the laws of acoustic waves. Shock waves alter the mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of solids and, thus, can be used to study the equation of state (a relation between pressure, temperature, and volume) of any material.
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