For reference, the loudest sound ever on earth was 180dB https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa
For reference, the theoretical maximum of sound with air as medium is 196db.
at what dB does the air ignite from the vibration of molecules
edit: okay so air does not ignite, but allows other things to ignite, but methane is one of those things in air so I reformulate the question as such:
what pressure of air is needed to produce sufficient heat to ignite any methane trapped within it, and what dB level is needed to form such compression even if for mere nanoseconds?
Apparantly depends on the medium and the type of wave being measured in dB.
At that point it can’t be sound waves, but potentially shockwaves could start to heat the air up.
Eventually with high enough temperature you can get air to become plasma, any matter in the air might burn but the air itself will not.
-not a scientist
I mean sounds is just differently compressed medium, usually air. Why are shock waves not sound waves?
Don't ask me, i am left with the exact same question myself. Which is why i felt the need to add the not a scientist disclaimer.
Though i did some research just now and its because the waves exhibit different very different properties
It might be a chicken and egg thing. Does it have different properties because it is fundamentally different, Or did we call it different because different properties emerged under different conditions (like having more energy)
Okay if you are talking about sound waves, they’re not really waves in the traditional sense. They are waves because it tracks the compactness/vibrations.
The reason why sound transfers faster in solids is because the atoms are more rigid due to, you know, being a solid.
If you pump enough energy into it, won’t you start doing funny things?
Ie: if you put enough energy into a rigid material there’s a point where it stops being able to take the force and breaks
I’m also not a scientist and also am the wrong type of engineer too so…
I’d imagine if you compact things faster than the energy can leave the immediate area, you’d run into funny phenomenons with the temperature/pressure/state of matter histogram.
Which brings me to my question of what is a shock wave if not a sound wave?
Speaking from how i intuitively feel about the science..
It looks like waves can exists on a spectrum from low energy to high energy and the more energy you add the more there is potential for complex reactions, the more new properties emerge and thus the more potential damage there can be done to given matter.
dB can be seen as the measurement of vibration that is usually used for the range of waves we call sound waves but i see no reason why it cant work outside the scope.
So technically feel the waves are really the same, but then compare that to the electromagnetic spectrum and we label some ranges as colors.
If red is the color that makes us angry. And green makes us calm. Then the question we are asking is: What shade of green do we need to make us angry?
Because were getting hung up on the fact there both measurements of photonic light, so essentially the same?
Is that a fair comparison? Can someone get a real scientist in the room please?
Im just gonna throw a number out there and use the wisdom of crowds via up/downvotes to estimate its validity
350db
Three fiddy?
2 upvotes vs 2 downvotes. This isn't working, I still don't know who is right.
What happens to pressure waves above that? The air liquifies or plasmafies?
The decibel scale is logarithmic, meaning that a 20,000 dB sound would carry an unimaginable amount of energy.
A hypothetical 20,000 dB sound would have an overpressure of approximately 5 x 10^499 atmospheres, enough energy to obliterate the Earth instantly.
And definitely scare off the tigers
Oh yeah, those tigers would not be hanging around
But would they, technically speaking, be scared?
Maybe? How fast does being scared process? Because if they die faster, then they won't be scared.
I just fucking KNEW that some nerd would turn up and explain that to me.
Ta.
Just to put this insane pressure scale into context, the core of a neutron star is estimated to have a pressure of 1.6 x 10^34 pascals.
1 atmosphere is 100 kPa, so you'll have to take 5 zeroes off, but when the magnitudes aren't even in the same magnitude, it doesn't really matter.
Oh yeah? Then why didn't it destroy Gotham City? Checkmate.
Same reason Batman survives injuries that would be fatal to a normal person and why the thugs he beats up never die: the DC universe is just built different.
You won't hear it coming
Amazingly, given the relatively slow speed of sound, you might actually see it coming. For a moment or two at least, before you're vaporized or whatever.
Prove it.
20000 decibel, or 2 kilobel
yes, deci- is the si prefix for ^1^/~10~. the actual unit is the bel.
i am saddled with this cursed knowledge so now you must be too.
Oh god how have I never realized this. You monster!
Also, it's crazy to me that we still use the normal metric prefixes for a logarithmic scale!
it's like with earthquakes, the number is for the amount of zeroes
Wonder if they got hertz and decibels confused when they were writing that.
Wouldn't that be a bit low? I haven't seen the show but I assume its something humans can't hear but tigers can. Although it is much more reasonable than the insane 20000 db they claim.
This means Adam West Batman is the most powerful.
That's a very..alternative usage of the word "realistically" 😄
More like "relativistically"
My back-of-the-envelope calculation says this would result in about 2·10^995^ Pa of sonic pressure. I could be way off, but yeah... the creation of a black hole seems likely.
i mean, if batman only says decibels, we don't know the reference value; SPL was never specified.
Maybe they ment to say 20khz?
The writers for the show weren’t too concerned with scientific accuracy. It’s intentionally silly.
I can remember an episode where people get dehydrated into a powder - and later get rehydrated lol
So about half of my upstairs neighbors teaching elephants to tap dance at 3AM.
Good 'ol prep time
Why would it create a black hole?
Matter energy equivalence, and the fact that decibels are a logarithmic scale. I found a reddit reply (I know, I know) that someone has done the math on, though I haven't checked if it's right. Anyway, it said:
20,000 decibels is 10^1997 watts, which is 10^1997 joules/second.
I think we can use P = p²/Z, where Z is 415 kg/m²s (impedance of air), to correlate our power P and the pressure p. So, p = sqrt(P/Z) which is still going to be on the order of 10^997 pascals.
The threshold we care about is 10^32 pascals, which is the pressure at which neutrons overcome their "degeneracy pressure", a pressure which prevents them from being too tightly packed. So, yes, that could collapse matter into black holes for sure for sure, since we're beating it by 965 orders of magnitude. Also, the pressure inside the sun is roughly 10^16 pascals.
Because sound is waves. You can feel your chest pounding when you're standing next to a loud speaker during a live concert. Energy from a 20000dB "source" would create an unimaginable blast wave.
It's a logarithmic scale.
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
Related communities: