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If I stand still and shout a phrase, then travel twice the speed of sound in a direction, will I hear that phrase backwards?

When I utter a phrase, that phrase will be sound waves moving away from me at the speed of sound. If I were able to suddenly propel myself (or a microphone) forward at twice the speed of sound, I imagine that I would overtake the sound waves I generated earlier at the speed of sound, and as a result I would hear the phrase I uttered in reverse. Some people I have discussed this with find that strange or hard to believe. Is my view correct?

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  • Asked by ketil
  • on 2009-08-06 11:45:22
  • Member status
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Categories: Our universe.

Tags: physics, speedofsound.

 

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Jon-Richfield says:

In that you would encounter the matching pressure fluctuations in reverse, yes, you could. However, what your practical chances would be of detecting the sound over the ambient Mach 2 noise, I would not like to say. Better shout really, really loud, and listen really carefully. 

 

Go well,

 

but fast,

Jon

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posted on 2009-08-09 19:22:31 | Report abuse


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sid910 says:
I think yes. Because after all we hear because of the vibration of the atoms.
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posted on 2010-11-23 06:50:44 | Report abuse


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mattgrubb says:

as you shout the sound waves travel from your mouth and reflect from the ground back to your earlobe. I am almost positive this is the method in which our hearing works when in open spaces like a valley or desert. When you are stationary you do not have to worry about things like the noise that the wind makes. I you were to shout the sound waves would assuming my method of reflection is the princple behind hearing have reflected the waves back at you as you travel, however the noise as pointed out created by airpresure flowing over your eardums at mach 2 would disturb the presure waves. Those presure waves are still there though. So with a microphone traveling at mach 2, it would simply have to do some complex mathmatics to cancel out the noise to hear the repeated phrase, im guessing.

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posted on 2010-12-25 02:08:01 | Report abuse


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