Shock Wave in the Beirut Explosion: Theory and Video Analysis

2025/10/15 by Czarnecki, Adam J., Czarnecki, Andrzej, Secrist, Raquel +1
#Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.24742

Abstract

Videos of the 2020 Beirut explosion offer a rare opportunity to see a shock wave. We summarize the non-linear theory of a weak shock, derive the Landau-Whitham formula for the thickness of the overpressure layer and, using frame-by-frame video analysis, we demonstrate a semi-quantitative agreement of data and theory.

Citations

• Revisiting Taylor and the Trinity Test

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