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.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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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?
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While sound can't travel through a vacuum, the vibrations of the sun create a "sound" energy equivalent of 290dB.
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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.
I just fucking KNEW that some nerd would turn up and explain that to me.
Ta.
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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.
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.
Are you a fellow PAG/NAG calculator, too?
More cursed knowledge (for them, probably not you): it's logarithmic so every 3dB increase is double the energy!
When I was in my first year of college - 26 years ago - I asked a question about logarithms and was thoroughly, angrily (and, looking back on the event, probably justifiably) reamed out by another student about it.
I don't think I publicly spoke up for the rest of that class.
edit: Remove extra words.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it probably wasn't justified to respond to a math question like that lol
I think it was an overreaction in terms of its delivery, but I was homeschooled and started college early. I was the stereotypical socially inept homeschooler. The class was introduction to college algebra, which doesn't usually cover logarithms AFAIK; I brought them up unprompted during a quiet moment when the teacher was cleaning the whiteboard. I was curious about them because I had been reading my older brother's textbooks and found them interesting.
The other student's complaint about me was that I monopolized the teacher's attention by sitting front and center and raising my hand for every question. Additionally she felt that I was trying to show off. At that point I was also very visibly younger than everyone else, which did occasionally annoy people. (This became less of an issue when I hit puberty and started growing a beard.)
But I was oblivious to those kinds of things at the time and didn't realize I was having any kind of impact on anyone else in the class until the other student chastised me. Perhaps it was an overreaction, but the message was one I needed to hear, I think.
Also, to their credit, that student did apologize to me, more calmly expressing the nature of their grievances; I apologized in turn and said that I would try to be less disruptive.
Fair enough. I had some pretty annoying kids in my classes but I never thought to rip them apart in front of everyone!
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Which one is babybel?
A Regional Bell Operating Company, roughly ^1^/~7~ of a Bell.
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sea scallops have hundreds of eyes which disappear when cooked
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!
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Wonder if they got hertz and decibels confused when they were writing that.
So Batman was trying to annoy the tiger away? I think more likely the schlock tv 60s kids show writers just had no idea what they were talking about
Why wouldn't they have just googled it?
Batman wasn't a fan of their privacy practices, even in the 60s.
Google didn't exist yet. They needed to Ask the real Jeeves.
Bruce Wayne had Ask Alfred.
That's a much better joke. Well done. :)
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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.
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Is a black whole capable of destroying the universe now?
Like I get that 20,000 dB is physically impossible but so is good tasting bubble gum and that wouldn't destroy the universe.
The energy release in one second of sound is many orders of magnitude more than the energy we believe exists inside the observable universe.
The resulting black hole would be bigger than the observable universe.
It may even be bigger than the whole universe, don't want to keep calculating though.
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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
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Good 'ol prep time
So about half of my upstairs neighbors teaching elephants to tap dance at 3AM.
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