As someone who has suffered from Tinnitus for the last ten years, I found this article "disheartening," to say the least. I attribute my Tinnitus to either a Ted Nugent concert in Indianapolis when I was in my teens, or to a firecracker going off near me (again, a stupid teenage incident), or a couple of years mowing lawns to make extra money. In any event, if I had it to do over, I'd avoid all situations in which there could be loud noises and I wouldn't go near one of the cars described in this article, let alone stick my head in the window. Take care of your hearing because once you get Tinnitus, there's no going back. My is so bad that if someone could provide me with a permanent cure, I'd write them a check for $10,000 on the spot just to make this constant ringing go away.
What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#22Doesn't that permanently damage the hearing?
Hearing damage is cumulative. Between my time in the military (my work-center was near some F-16 hangars) and several years participating in competitive pistol shooting (hearing protection worn), I now sometimes have trouble understanding people.
Just like getting your vision checked, you should get your hearing checked periodically. Age plays a factor. As you get older, the nerves in your ear become less sensitive and the structures in the ear can become less responsive to sound.
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#23I have an associate who's big into these competitions. I've never checked one out, a mutual friend did though. He said it freaked him out, that the force of sound was so powerful he felt like he couldn't breath.
Yeah, breathing difficulty is listed as one of the effects of sonic weapons:
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's permanently damaged in the sense that a bridge is permanently damaged by people walking over it -- simply put, hearing sound erodes your ear drums regardless of how minute it is. Except that bridges aren't self-repairing organisms, so the analogy is flawed in that sense too.
The damaged nerves in the ears do not heal.
He was talking about "eroding ear drums".
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#25First thought was: "10 trillion heartbeats?"
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's permanently damaged in the sense that a bridge is permanently damaged by people walking over it -- simply put, hearing sound erodes your ear drums regardless of how minute it is. Now, whether listening to really loud things escalates the hearing loss is probably what you were asking. If a million people were shuffling along a bridge and they all walked gently then the bridge will be damaged minimally, but if a h…
I stopped reading at "Sound erodes your ear drums", you obviously wrote all this but have no clue about how the ear actually works. Its not the ear drum that gets damaged over time, its the hair cells inside the cochlea that eventually die.
Yeah I tried to keep domain-specific terminology to a minimum, most people don't know their sense of hearing comes from sensitive hairs in their ears. Good catch though, and sorry if it made you cringe.
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#27>The Kiss concert in Ottawa was, says David, "17,000 times louder and ten trillion times more powerful than a heartbeat." Can anybody convert this to libraries of congress for me? Or perhaps elephants standing on a postage stamp?
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#28"The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy notes that Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally held to be not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert-goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the stage, whilst the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet.
Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.
Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band's public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitation treaties."
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#29I was at kiss within the last two weeks and you didn't hear the music, you felt it as your hearing slowly failed. I forgot to bring earplugs, something I would never recommend, and I could hear not a thing at the end of the concert. Thinking of something so loud that it makes objects move.... nope.
Well, it's not hard to make things move with sound. I'll bet there was a good amount of wind being generated by the speakers at that concert, and indeed every concert. My home stereo system can blow papers around if I set those papers right in front of the subwoofer. The speakers in my car and blow papers around if they're laying on the floor.
Speakers move air. That's what they do. Making objects move is a simple as them being light enough to blow in the breeze or vibrations created.
Re: What Is 10 Trillion Times More Powerful Than A Heartbeat?
#30Now I want to go and find one of these drag events, so I can experience it. Further curious I was searching and found this chart...not sure of the accuracy. http://www.makeitlouder.com/Decibel%20Level%20Chart.txt
The world's 'Quietest Room' is omitted:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/04/03/dail...