High speeds are important for energy storage as for flywheels and also for propulsion. So I was surprised to see how high the speed of sound could be in solids, much higher than for gases like air:
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI1MA.HTM
Here’s the problem: for a sound wave it’s not the individual particles moving at that speed of sound, just the disturbance. See these animations to understand the difference:
https://phys.libretexts.org/@api/deki/files/14872/longitudinal_wave.gif
https://ds055uzetaobb.cloudfront.net/uploads/BA0A3V9ODx-p4g2-1.gif
So while the sound speed in a solid might be 10’s of kilometers per second, no actual particle is moving that fast. But the thing is energy and information can be transported that fast by the sound wave, by virtue of the fact motion induced at one of the solid can be transmitted to the other end at the speed of sound. It just won’t be the same particles moving at the beginning as at the end.
But it just seems if you can transmit energy at that speed you should be able to move an actual particle at that speed. Can it be done?
BTW, I am aware of the analogy to light speed, that you can transmit energy and information at the speed of light but not matter. But even in that case you can get quite close to light speed with actual particles, as proven with high energy accelerators. And I would be happy even with getting quite close in the sound wave scenario.
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