Tom Stanton's supersonic trebuchet breaks sound barrier with gravity alone

Tom Stanton has built a gravity-powered trebuchet that launched a 4-gram projectile at 776 miles per hour—breaking the sound barrier for the first time with a purely gravity-based machine. He overcame the physics limitations of traditional trebuchets by using a 3:1 pulley ratio system that increases rotational speed as the counterweight falls, combined with an ultra-light 116-gram carbon-fiber arm designed to withstand extreme stress. The engineering achievement demonstrates how creative mechanical solutions can overcome the constraints that medieval designers faced with these ancient siege weapons.