The Sound of an Atomic Bomb (2024)

FAQs

The Sound of an Atomic Bomb? ›

In general, the noise produced by a nuclear bomb can reach levels of up to 240 decibels at its epicenter. This is equivalent to standing next to a rocket launch or a powerful jet engine. The sound is so intense that it can rupture eardrums, cause permanent hearing loss, and even lead to death in extreme cases.

A nuclear bomb.

Decibel meters set 250 feet away from test sites peaked at 210 decibels. The sound alone is enough to kill a human being, so if the bomb doesn't kill you, the noise will.

The boom may sound more like a gunshot than a thunderclap and will be followed by a sustained roaring sound. Improvised nuclear devices may produce a mushroom cloud rising from ground zero. That cloud contains dangerous, radioactive particles called “fallout.”

boom--the sound that a bomb makes. crash--the sound that breaking glass makes.

The sound was heard to the same distance in a few instances but generally to about 100 miles.

The Krakatoa volcanic eruption: Not only did it cause serious damage to the island, the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 created the loudest sound ever reported at 180 dB.

Loud sounds with intensities above 194dB can start damaging our eardrums, so 300dB is simply incomprehensible in terms of its destructive power. Such a sound level would create shockwaves of incredible force, capable of demolishing buildings and causing immense destruction within a considerable radius.

Explosions create waves of increased pressure, followed by negative pressure, which can be extremely damaging to ears and internal organs. Keeping one's mouth open is said to equalize pressure, therefore reducing internal damage.

In fact, military terminology calls a nuclear weapon a bucket of sunshine because it's like somebody has spilled a bucket of sunshine and the sky just lights up. “The next thing is you feel the heat from the fireball, and a couple of minutes later you feel the blast. It's a hot wind, but only for a short time.

Today, the city of Hiroshima explains on its website, the city's level of radiation is “on a par with the extremely low levels of background radiation (natural radioactivity) present anywhere on Earth” and has no effect on humans (here).

How do you describe the sound of a bomb going off? ›

Boom! The bomb went off after the minute was up. The "boom" at the beginning of the sentence could be replaced by a variety of different onomatopoeias. Such as "boosh", "bam".

Not all bombs were equipped with whistles, but they still all made noise as they fell due to air displacement (just not the famous whistling sound). This Wikipedia page gives one example of bombs that were purposefully fitted with whistles.

Sound cannons, also known as Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) or sound bombs, are acoustic weapons often used as a crowd control tactic.

Anyone up to a few miles away would suffer third-degree burns. People up to 53 miles away could experience temporary blindness. Fires would tear through the wreckage. Emergency services would struggle to support survivors in the immediate vicinity of the blast.

Even though there is very little fallout that still exists in the environment, it is important to remember that recent fallout, within about 10 to 20 miles downwind of the detonation, can be very dangerous. This section talks about the different ways we can be exposed to radiation if a nuclear detonation occurs.

Although details about how far fallout travels are highly dependent on weather conditions, the most dangerous concentrations of fallout particles (i.e., potentially fatal external exposures to those outdoors) occur within 10 to 20 miles downwind of the explosion (from a 10 kT detonation).

The noise from the largest detonated atomic bomb, the RDS-202 Tsar Bomb, can be estimated at an incredible 224 dB.

Converting the energy of 1,100 decibels to mass yields 1.113x1080 kg, meaning that the radius of the resulting black hole's event horizon would exceed the diameter of the known universe. Voila! No more universe.

Tsar Bomba, Soviet thermonuclear bomb that was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. The largest nuclear weapon ever set off, it produced the most powerful human-made explosion ever recorded.

Because the dB scale is logarithmic. This means that a 1130 dB is absolutely ridiculously loud. For reference, under normal conditions the loudest possible sound (on Earth) is 194 dB. A sound of 1000 dB would be loud enough to create a black hole larger than the galaxy.