Being in a vacuum is like being in an empty subway car - there’s no molecular medium for the pattern of movement, tension and release to travel through. It’s also why you can’t hear sounds in space. The pattern travels through the crowd - bump-tense-wiggle-sigh, bump-tense-wiggle-sigh. (There would also be words exchanged, but that is neither germane to our thought experiment nor child friendly.) Meanwhile, though, that original person you bumped into has now relaxed. In the process, they’d probably bump into the next person, who would tense up and shimmy away from them. If you were to hip check the person standing next to you - which I do not recommend - they would tense up and scoot away from you. Again, think of being on a crowded train car. These wiggles are what the world’s barometers were measuring in the wake of the Krakatoa eruption. As they wiggle, they bump into the particles next to them, which, in turn, nudge the particles next to them. Snap your fingers and you jostle the particles right next to you. hemmed in in every direction by the molecules that make up the air around us. In reality, we’re more like commuters on the subway at 5 p.m. We all live life like we’re Maria von Trapp, swinging our arms around in an empty field. In general, our world is much more crowded than we think it is. Sound is powerful and pervasive and it surrounds us all the time, whether we’re aware of it or not. Second, just because you can’t hear a sound doesn’t mean it isn’t there. There are two important lessons about sound in there: One, you don’t have to be able to see the loudest thing in the world in order to hear it. Instead, what those places recorded were spikes in atmospheric pressure - the very air tensing up and then releasing with a sigh, as the waves of sound from Krakatoa passed through. Now, nobody heard Krakatoa in England or Toronto. Not only are there records of people hearing the sound of Krakatoa thousands of miles away, there is also physical evidence that the sound of the volcano’s explosion traveled all the way around the globe multiple times. Scientists think this is probably the loudest sound humans have ever accurately measured. At that very moment, the Indonesian volcanic island of Krakatoa was blowing itself to bits 2,233 miles away. 27, 1883, ranchers on a sheep camp outside Alice Springs, Australia, heard a sound like two shots from a rifle. Sound can kill you.Ĭonsider this piece of history: On the morning of Aug. When the shock wave from a bomb levels a house, that’s sound tearing apart bricks and splintering glass. If a sound is loud enough, it can plow into you like a linebacker and knock you flat on your butt. If a sound is loud enough, it can rip a hole in your ear drum. The louder the sound, the heavier the knock. A sound is a shove - just a little one, a tap on the tightly stretched membrane of your ear drum. See, there’s this thing about sound that even we grown-ups tend to forget - it’s not some glitter rainbow floating around with no connection to the physical world. Q: I want to hear what the loudest thing in the world is! - Kara Jo, age 5 I want the toddlers in your life to be a part of it! Send me their science questions and they may serve as the inspiration for a column. The answers are for adults, but they wouldn’t be possible without the wonder only a child can bring. With that in mind, we’ve started a series called Science Question From a Toddler, which will use kids’ curiosity as a jumping-off point to investigate the scientific wonders that adults don’t even think to ask about. Sometimes, their little brains can lead to big places adults forget to explore. The questions kids ask about science aren’t always easy to answer.
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