Mach number
Sign in to saveratio of speed of object moving through fluid and speed of sound
AI overview
Mach number is a ratio that compares how fast an object is moving through a fluid (like air) to how fast sound travels through that same fluid. It matters because it helps describe whether something is moving slower than sound (subsonic), at the speed of sound (Mach 1), or faster than sound (supersonic), which affects how the object behaves and interacts with the fluid around it.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
An F/A-18 Hornet creating a vapor cone at transonic speed just before reaching the speed of sound.
The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach (/mɑːk/; German: [max]), is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after Austrian-Czech physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach.