What's the loudest sound possible? If there is a limit,

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/25q8o0/is_there_maximum_as_to_how_loud_a_sound_can_be/

In principle, there's isn't one. But at a certain point, the medium propagating this sound wave I guess could be completely displaced and it would no longer really be a wave at all. That's sort of what happens in pic related, but the wall of air rushing at you (that hasn't been turned to plasma) is like a sonic boom and not really a sound wave. If you watch the old videos of nuclear tests, you'll notice that after the wind tears by, it all comes rushing back in because of the huge pressure differential.
Again, not really a sound wave.

>>7805937
No upper limit, really. The loudest recorded sound was some volcano going off, it ruptured eardrums miles away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SauQYUJ2Ckw

Not the same thing, but you get the idea.

So, if you were inside a planet made entirely out of iron-nickle and it was struck with similar planet going at .4 the speed of light, it'd be very loud.

>>7805937
There is a limit. Sound is energy, and if you pack too much energy in a small space you get black holes and other spooky physics

>>7805947
I don't come to /sci/ to read reddit threads, fagtron.

>>7805974
Don't ever fucking reply to my posts again unless you have something to contribute for this thread.

>>7805977
Quit being a shithead

>>7805971
Sound isn't a real form of energy, it's an effect of energy displacing matter. When you come out of your parent's basement and actually say words at the store clerk selling you the ramen noodles, all the gross clicks and gurgles from your voicebox displace air by vibrating, it creates sound waves.

It is not an energetic wave, like say, a blast of gamma waves from a dying sun, it's just a temporary deviation in pressure that disrupts a medium and propagates through that medium.

>>7805984
So what you're saying is that sound is energy...

File: 1411869800737.jpg (99KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

99KB, 960x720px

>>7805977
go back to r/amacompletefaggot

>Don't ever fucking reply to my posts again
fuck you

>>7805992
Actual OP here,
This post >>7805977 is some shit stain whose alone again on a Saturday night.

>>7805991
No. Well, yeah. But no. It's propagation of energy. But it's not a good transferance of energy.

So you confront your evil twin on the top of a skyscraper, you point your gun at him and pull the trigger. Almost all of the energy, besides what is lost through friction in the gunbarrel, is transfered to that .357 slug, the report of the shot is a tiny fraction of the energy lost to air resistance the bullet faces. The bullet loses almost no energy to the air resistance because of it's shape. The sound, or noise, comes entirely from the compressed gases driving the bullet through the barrel suddenly reaching an open nozzle and expanding rapidly.

If you had a silencer on your pistol, the bullet would have an even higher velocity toward your evil twin's heart and it would make even LESS noise. When what a silencer does is give baffles for the exited air molecules to bounce around, it creates no 'pop-cork' effect to make a sound.

So no, sound is not energy, it is a byproduct of energy and only sometimes.

>>7806024
>an even higher velocity
...no

>>7806024
Sound is mechanical energy you idiot. You cannot say it isn't energy because it fucking is ENERGY. to the basic foundation of what energy is, sound = energy. Don't be idiot, anon.
Go do some basic research of what energy is, and then re-evaluate your life.

>>7806037
Please refrain from making garbage posts like this. You have added nothing to the topic and only wasted my time for having to spot your bullshit. I hope in future you will show better integrity in making posts. I won't warn you again.

>>7806039
Go learn basic physics.

>>7806033
Yeah, silencers on firearms act like an extension of the barrel and the bullets achieve higher velocities. Go google it or something

>>7806037
It's really not. A bullet in space in a pure vacuum has as much energy as an ear-splitting blast from a firearm fired on earth atmosphere.

Okay, I detonate a 50mt nuclear bomb in space. It is exactly as energetic as a bomb detonated under the sea, or right above Paris. One creates no sound, the other it doesn't, the energy released is the same, the blast loses no energy through the medium of air. The blast is more destructive in the atmosphere than it ever would be in space, for the same amount of energy. There is no violation of the laws of physics. Conservation of energy dictates that sound is not a form of energy, it is a result of energy. You cannot have sound without a PERCUSSIVE source of energy that lends it'self to transmitting energy through a medium. Your 5ma computer speakers transmit more sound than a 500M gamma ray emitter.

Me, you, 50 other assholes are in a crowd at a rock concert. I shove you, you fall into 3 other people, they fall back into other people, 17 people got jostled. It's just energy propagating. If I shoved you in the parking lot, it'd be the same energy.

>>7806083
Just wanted to say I love your analogies you've used throughout the thread