Whip-Cracking Machine Reliably Breaks the Sound Barrier

We tend to think of breaking the sound barrier as a comparatively modern accomplishment, but on a smaller scale, cattle herders have been breaking it for centuries: the cracking sound of the tip of a bullwhip snapping comes from a small-scale sonic boom. Reliably getting a crack out of a whip takes skill and practice, though, which is why [Craig Turner] built a whip-cracking machine . The first step was to build the whip itself, which was surprisingly complicated.