Scientists discover fastest possible speed of sound

A research collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, the University of Cambridge and Institute for High Pressure Physics in Troitsk has discovered the fastest possible speed of sound.

The result, about 36 km per second, is around twice as fast as the speed of sound in diamond. Until now, it wasn’t known whether there was an upper speed limit

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that predicting the upper limit of the speed of sound is dependent on two dimensionless fundamental constants: the fine structure constant and the proton-to-electron mass ratio.