However, to instantly kill, a sound would have to be as loud as 240 dB which is hard to come by. Certain infrasound frequencies can also be potentially lethal.
At 194 dB, the energy in the sound waves starts distorting and they create a complete vacuum between themselves. The sound is no longer moving through the air, but is in fact pushing the air along with it, forming a pressurized wall of moving air.
The loudest controlled manmade sounds in history were produced this week--not by a rock band, but by a physicist.
A sperm whale's click is 200 decibels, the unit used to measure the intensity of a sound, said Jennifer Miksis-Olds, associate professor of acoustics at Penn State.
Apparently, a sound of 1,100 decibels would create so much energy, it would act as a immensely high quantity of mass. This would, in turn, create enough gravity to form an extremely large black hole!
There are more than a few popular myths that have permeated the annals of space history, including one that the launch of th Saturn V rocket was so loud that the sound itself melted concrete and set fire to grass more than a mile away. Sadly, as many myths go, that's simply not true.
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. Fun fact!
First 1000 dB is a physical impossibility, anything over 150dB would burst your eardrums, anything over 194dB is no longer sound and anything over 200dB is fatal.
Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, about 110 decibels, like the sound of an explosion or a thunderclap.
Sounds above 150 dB have the potential of causing life-threatening issues. Sounds between 170-200 dB are so intense that they can cause lethal issues like pulmonary embolisms, pulmonary contusions, or even burst lungs. As for exploding heads, you can expect that from sounds above 240 dB.
0 dB occurs when you take the log of a ratio of 1 (log 1 = 0). So 0 dB does not mean no sound, it means a sound level where the sound pressure is equal to that of the reference level. This is a small pressure, but not zero.
Noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing. Loud noise above 120 dB can cause immediate harm to your ears.
a sound greater than 1,100 decibels would unleash enough energy to act like an equivalent quantity of mass. Through Einstein's laws of relativity, this mass would create enough gravity enough to form a black hole. Shortly thereafter, everything in existence would disappear in a crush of sound.
Sounds above 90 dB can lead to chronic hearing damage if people are exposed to them every day or all the time. Hearing becomes uncomfortable if the sound pressure level is above 110 decibels (threshold of discomfort), and it becomes painful above 130 decibels (threshold of pain).
310 decibels is loud enough to kill you. Ear drums rupture between 150 and 160 decibels. That means Krakatoa was exponentially higher on the decibel scale as a sound high enough to cause your ear drums to literally explode.
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!
But what about the loudest sound ever heard? On the morning of 27 August 1883, on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa, a volcanic eruption produced what scientists believe to be the loudest sound produced on the surface of the planet, estimated at 310 decibels (dB).
The flash was accompanied by a rush of heat and was followed by a huge pressure wave and the rumbling sound of the explosion. Curiously enough, this sound was not distinctly noted by those who survived near the center of the explosion, although it was heard as far as 15 miles away.
There is at least some testing footage from the era that features sound. It is jarring to hear. The boom is more like a shotgun than a thunderclap, and it's followed by a sustained roar. Here's one example, from a March 1953 test at Yucca Flat, the nuclear test site in the Nevada desert.
From 0.2 to 3 seconds after detonation, the intense heat emitted from the fireball exerted powerful effects on the ground. Temperatures near the hypocenter reached 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius. This heat burned human skin as far as 3.5 kilometers from the hypocenter.
Many common building materials, such as gypsum board, wood, concrete, brick and tile, are fairly reflective and do not absorb much sound. Softer materials, such as carpet, foam padding, and fiberglass insulation, are far better at absorbing sound. The use of absorptive materials can be helpful in controlling sound.
Sound cannot travel through a vacuum because there are no particles to carry the vibrations.
Mineral, rock or stone wool insulation, such as QuietFibre, are essentially open cell insulation materials which work very well at absorbing acoustic and thermal energies.