The first 1 to answer right gets 10 points…?

The sound is made by the tip exceeding the speed of sound and breaking the sound barrier.

Here, I found an article about it on the internet, and the explanation makes a lot of sense. I’ll copy and paste the article here:

To crack a whip, you move it in one direction then pull it sharply

back in the opposite direction. A wave-like curve passes down the

length of the whip, getting smaller as it goes. When the wave

reaches the end of the whip there is a loud popping sound that can

release as much energy as a firecracker.

The cause of the sound is the speed of the whip’s movement through

the air. As the wave travels down the whip it becomes compressed

into a shorter length of ever-narrower whip. The compression and the

narrower material cause the wave to speed up.

The crack happens when the wave nears the tip. By that time, the

movement exceeds the speed of sound. The crack is actually a tiny

sonic boom, a shock wave just like the one made by the Space Shuttle

as it re-enters the atmosphere.

A wave-like curve passes down the

length of the whip, getting smaller as it goes. When the wave

reaches the end of the whip there is a loud popping sound that can

release as much energy as a firecracker.

The cause of the sound is the speed of the whip’s movement through

the air. As the wave travels down the whip it becomes compressed

into a shorter length of ever-narrower whip. The compression and the

narrower material cause the wave to speed up.

The crack happens when the wave nears the tip. By that time, the

movement exceeds the speed of sound. The crack is actually a tiny

sonic boom, a shock wave just like the one made by

As an object passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound, and as the speed of the whip increases the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot “get out of the way” of each other, eventually merging into a single shock wave at the speed of sound.

the tip of the whip exceeds the speed of sound, thats what makes the crack noise. the smaller diameter at the end of the whip helps it achieve this speed.

my mom

air…