In sound waves, frequency translates to pitch, so what you get is a very odd sounding voice. If the sound moved faster in air, it would change the way waves added together, making certain frequencies louder and others quieter. Some sync up perfectly, while others actually interfere with one another, producing a smaller wave and a quieter sound. However, not all frequencies add together in the same way. There, waves of the same frequency add together to produce much bigger waves - which translates to louder sound. When we speak, our vocal cords vibrate to produce sound waves of many different frequencies, pumping them into the larynx, or voice box. Voices would sound particularly strange, Gollin said. Sustained wind speeds above 60 miles per hour are enough to uproot trees, knock down buildings, and throw cars around.An ultra-fast speed of sound would completely change the way our world sounds. The speed of sound in air is about 750 miles per hour (340 m/s). Note that if there really were large, sustained, weather-caused winds that were going faster than the speed of sound relative to the ground, you would have a lot more to worry about than the sound of the sonic booms. Wind going faster than the speed of sound and hitting stationary trees, houses, and rocks would create sonic booms. In fact, this equivalence is the operating principle behind wind tunnels. In both cases, the same sonic boom is created. A jet flying faster than the speed of sound through stationary air is identical to wind blowing faster than the speed of sound past a stationary jet. But, if that supersonic wind hits a stationary object, it will create a sonic boom and knock that object forcefully. Wind traveling faster than the speed of sound in isolation is still just wind. So what would happen if wind traveled faster than the speed of sound? In isolation, not much. With that said, large gusts of wind on earth's surface do not typically travel anywhere near as fast as sound. Air on the International Space Station is traveling about 20 times the speed of sound relative to earth, and yet the astronauts in the space station can talk just fine and send sound back and forth through this air. For instance, air in your living room that is stationary with respect to you and the earth is also wind traveling at incredible speed relative to the center of our galaxy. If you pick your frame of reference right, you can get wind traveling at nearly the speed of light. On the other hand, the speed of sound is the speed of a vibrational wave inside a material relative to that material, and is therefore not frame dependent. Wind speed is the speed of a chunk of air moving relative to a stationary, external observer. Wind speed and the speed of sound are completely different things. Different materials have different speeds of sound. The speed of sound just describes how fast a mechanical wave travels through a material. The speed of sound is not a fundamental speed like the speed of light is. The only limitation on the bulk motion of objects with mass is the universal speed limit of the speed of light in vacuum. Wind is just the bulk movement of a mass of air through space and is in principle no different from a train speeding along or a comet zipping through space. Yes, wind can travel faster than the speed of sound. Wind travels faster than the speed of sound in supersonic wind tunnels.
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