We all know very well that despite the list below, the sounds of Telegrafia’s electronic sirens are at the top of the list. After all, who would dare and say anything else. Well, whatever the truth, we will be on top one day. 🙂
10. Live Concerts
A concert played by your favourite band. Well enough, it may not be every band’s concert, but the sound load at some shows can reach as many as 140 dB, and this can seriously damage your hearing. However, it is probably the only type of noise in this list that we voluntarily look forward to and still enjoy.
9. Fireworks
These would probably be expected in this list by very few. Still, fireworks can produce a sound wave as intense as approximately 145 to 150 dB at the moment of explosion. Fortunately for our ears, fireworks are always observed from a sufficient distance, and the explosion itself lasts only a moment, so we usually do not consider them terribly noisy.
8. Shooting from Projectile Weapons
Not for nothing do all sports shooters wear protective headphones! At the moment a bullet comes out of the barrel, the sound wave can be as powerful as about 150 dB. Of course, when shooting from a pistol, it is only a one-time affair, but when shooting around with a powerful submachine gun, be prepared for a lot of noise.
7. Racing Dragsters
These specialised racing vehicles, which accelerate against each other on a 300-metre track, must have enormously powerful engines. As a result, when accelerated, they are not only heard but physically felt too. A fully accelerating dragster can produce noise with an intensity of up to 155 dB, which can cause intense physical pain and rapid, irreversible hearing damage.
6. Space Shuttle Launch
In sixth place comes the noise from space rocket engines. The famous Space Shuttle produced noise of 165 to 170 dB. During human-crewed flights to the moon, namely, in the most giant Saturn V spacecraft up to date, it was possible to speak of a moment with an intensity of nearly 204 dB. This is also the most intense continuous noise in our list as rocket engines run for tens of seconds during the rocket launch.
5. Animal Love Songs
Can an animal drown out rocket engines? Yes, it can, and it is not a neighbour’s dog at 2 am. Interestingly enough, if you were a blue whale and the nearest handsome partner was a few hundred kilometres away from you, your love song could be still heard. A blue whale’s mating song can be as loud as an incredible 188 dB in water, which means it is rightly called the noisiest animal on the planet.
4. Atomic Bomb Explosion
The top positions in our list are taken by the events whose noise intensity can only be estimated. This is so for several good reasons. First, from a purely technical point of view, sound in the air cannot be more intense than 194 dB. At this intensity, the individual sound waves interfere with each other and create a vacuum. Of course, it is possible to go beyond this limit, but we should talk more about a shock wave instead of a sound wave then.
The noise from the largest detonated atomic bomb, the RDS-202 Tsar Bomb, can be estimated at an incredible 224 dB. Since the decibels are logarithmic, it is a hundred times more deafening a noise than the Saturn V space rocket. However, if it exploded (and it would last a few milliseconds only), you would probably be bothered with other things than measuring the exact intensity of the noise.
3. Strong Earthquakes
Like the fireworks mentioned above, earthquakes are hardly ever associated with a loud noise, but the opposite is true. The most intense is submarine earthquakes. Even those registered 5.0 on the Richter scale reach a noise intensity of 235 dB in water.
2. Tunguska Meteorite Explosion
What happened on this otherwise peaceful 1908 morning in Russia? In addition to the explosion of a space asteroid high above Earth, we could probably also experience the second-noisiest one-off show on Earth. The power of the noise was estimated at 300 dB. If we wanted to create a similar sound wave with an atomic bomb, we would need a bomb about 50 times stronger than the largest we have ever made and detonated.
1. Krakatoa Volcano Eruption
The intensity of a shock wave at the top of our list can only be estimated by calculation. Although the Tunguska meteorite explosion later came as a strong opponent, the winner was the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883. It was clearly heard even at a distance of 5,000 km, and the sound waves the blast had caused circled the Earth four times in all directions. At a distance of 160 km, noise intensities as loud as 172 dB were recorded, so it could be calculated that the noise in the epicentre must have been as high as hard-to-be-imagined 310 dB.
And a special award goes to …
… the angry voice of your mother or father after you did something horrible at puberty. Well, admittedly, it was indeed the most intense noise on Earth at that given moment, without any measurements needed.
The article was written by
Miroslava Malachovska
Miroslava is the marketing manager. She has been working for Telegrafia for more than twelve years. She began as a business department assistant and later worked as an educational centre coordinator. Since her return from maternity leave, she has been working for the marketing department. The experience and knowledge she has gained give her a solid base for the challenging and creative work she is now doing for the marketing department. She loves running, and keeps fit by regular training and preparing for half-marathon competitions.
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Images:
Billy Hicks, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
GSenkow, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Oregon State University, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Tyco99, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
