Atomic bombs and decibels.

[Circlotron]

That dual paragon of both engineering achievement and human stupidity must hold some fascination for all those interested in sounds / loud noises. First generation fission bombs reportedly had an equivalent explosive power of 4000-5000 tons of TNT. That's quite a bit of noise by anyone's standards. Enough to flatten a city. Now consider this - by the mid to late 1950's the then superpowers were testing fusion bombs in the 50,000,000 ton range. The point is, that is over 40dB louder than those earlier devices.

[janneman]

...but what is your REAL point?

Jan Didden

[Fuling]

I think what Circlotron really wants is to build a choke loaded H-bomb powered subwoofer.

[setmenu]

OK
Imagine how loud the sun would be if we could hear it
hehe



Setmenu

[wintermute]

Originally posted by Circlotron
That dual paragon of both engineering achievement and human stupidity must hold some fascination for all those interested in sounds / loud noises. First generation fission bombs reportedly had an equivalent explosive power of 4000-5000 tons of TNT. That's quite a bit of noise by anyone's standards. Enough to flatten a city. Now consider this - by the mid to late 1950's the then superpowers were testing fusion bombs in the 50,000,000 ton range. The point is, that is over 40dB louder than those earlier devices.

So are you saying we need to build a hydrogen bomb in order to make any significant difference to the loudness of our audio systems

That's a significant cost for an extra 40db!!!!!

Tony.

edit: probably a bit obtuse but were you reffering by any chance to the law of diminishing returns?

[Keld]

Hi

Max dB in air is something like 190. So if we want to go higher maybe scuba gear and a new bigger Bikini bomb .
Keld

[sobazz]

By the way - when does sound pressure become lethal? I know that danish scientist developing instruments for satelites test the outcome in a speciel chamber designed for extreme SPL. Being in there while testing is LETHAL.

[phase_accurate]

Max dB in air is something like 190. So if we want to go higher maybe scuba gear and a new bigger Bikini bomb .

Could even be more in the nearfield - since the air pressure will temporarily be increased by some extent, allowing for much larger pressure variations.

Regards

Charles

[Christer]

Originally posted by Keld
Hi

Max dB in air is something like 190. So if we want to go higher maybe scuba gear and a new bigger Bikini bomb .
Keld

Not at all. At some level, perhaps 190dB, you will start to get a
quite heavy assymetric clipping, though.

[tpenguin]

Originally posted by Circlotron
That dual paragon of both engineering achievement and human stupidity must hold some fascination for all those interested in sounds / loud noises. First generation fission bombs reportedly had an equivalent explosive power of 4000-5000 tons of TNT. That's quite a bit of noise by anyone's standards. Enough to flatten a city. Now consider this - by the mid to late 1950's the then superpowers were testing fusion bombs in the 50,000,000 ton range. The point is, that is over 40dB louder than those earlier devices.

Actually, the first bombs were in the 15-25 kiloton range, and while very destructive (and loud), still not nearly enough to destroy an entire large city. While the US did at one time have at least a few 120 megaton bombs in its arsenal, the Soviet Union were the only ones to ever actually detonate a bomb with a yield greater than 10 megatons, their so-called "monster bomb" at 60 megatons. That is certainly enough to flatten a large city and its suburbs.