I’m hijacking this from another thread and want to ask :
If a projectile was sufficiently energized to go faster than the speed of sound underwater (superaquasonic?-sounds like a George Clinton tune) would it form a shock wave akin to that formed in air by supersonic projectiles or would the density of water inhibit this.
As I understand it, you’d flatten whatever it is trying to go that fast. Friction, mostly, but water does feel like concrete when you hit it fast enough. You can’t compress water as easy as you can air, so it would be nearly impossible, I’d imagine.
Yeah water’s a lot denser than air, but lets say you make some solid tungsten alloy (or other super strong material) projectile, shouldn’t you be able to accelerate (rocket/railgun/catapult launch) it past the speed of sound in water without it disintegrating?
Here is a picture of an underwater shockwave produced by a supercavitating projectile. It has already been done, so we know the answer, don’t we?
I don’t suppose you have a cite for this often repeated factoid.
I tried to get to the bottom of this in this thread. No one presented a definitive answer, but I am sure of the fact that water most certainly does not feel like concrete if you hit it fast enough.
Try accidentally bellyflopping off a ten meter platform. Oh yeah, it feels like concrete.
Wasn’t this answered in the other thread you referenced? I don’t think anyone is claiming that hitting water at a high velocity is identical to hitting concrete only that due to surface tension, in-compressibility etc. that large amounts of damage (possibly lethal) can be done to a human body if water is hit with sufficient velocity and at an angle where a lot of the body is impacting with the water at once. It’s really a slightly metaphorical point with dramatic emphasis, to illustrate that it is easy to hurt or kill yourself if you hit the water sufficient force and that at those speeds water is more like a non-compressible solid that a forgiving liquid.
Per your no height limit example, in a strictly theoretical sense it’s probably possible to enter the water at terminal velocity for the human body and survive if you are at the right angle and minimize the water surface area impacting your body. For that matter there is the example of a Russian military pilot falling out of his airplane from thousands of feet sans parachute, hitting a sloped mountainside at the right angle and surviving. Keeping perfect diving entry form into the ocean after a fall of a couple of miles might be a bit of a challenge, however, but I know you are up to it!