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"Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland" Wait how is this possible?
by polishdude20 4y ago
"Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland"
Wait how is this possible?
- stevenwoo 4y agoWeather inversion where the sound the travels slightly faster and farther in different temperature air medium plus reflection of waves that would normally dissipate to upper atmosphere if I read this correctly. http://spectrums.com/sound-and-the-weather/ http://spectrums.com/sound-and-the-weather/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- duskwuff 4y agoIn this context, "guns" probably means cannon, not small arms like rifles or pistols.
- bragr 4y agoEven still, cannon fire from 250+ miles (at least, that's just to the border) seems improbable
- vidanay 4y agoAnd there's my weekly reminder that the British Isles are SMALL.
- galangalalgol 4y agoNo kidding! I was on the interstate this last week and a sign showed more than twice that distance just to the next major city in the state. (along that highway, there were closer ones in other directions)
- pessimizer 4y agoThere's a saying that goes something like "Americans think 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think 100 miles is a long way."
- R0b0t1 4y agoSeems plausible base on my experiences outdoors, but it heavily depends on ambient conditions. Over such large distances I think the unlikely part is you do that trick twice, but even that is plausible merely by looking at seasonal changes.
- _8j50 4y agoUmm...no, you've never heard heavy artillery fire then? It won't be loud, more like a disant thunder but i know for a fact it can be heard in 100-150mile range. No idea how altitude, weather, geography and other factors can extend this range but I wouldn't discount it without knowing more facts.
- ImprovedSilence 4y agoyeah, from experience, wind direction can definitely play a larger part in how far sound travels than is immediately obvious too.
- closewith 4y agoShell detonations could definitely be heard at that distance through propagation through the ground/water. Even at sea, I don’t think you’d be able to hear the muzzle blast at anywhere close to 100 miles. Ceremonial artillery doesn't fire projectiles, just propellant charges, so it seems implausible that it could be heard at those distances.
- _8j50 4y agoWhy did you mention ceremonial artillery?
- closewith 4y agoThis thread is about the subject of ceremonial artillery. > "Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland"
- _8j50 4y agoI assumed they would fire live rounds back then lol
- InitialLastName 4y agoThe context is the guns fired at Queen Victoria's funeral, which would almost certainly not be non-ceremonial artillery.
- googlryas 4y agoI agree it defies belief. Why think it was from London and not from some other city closer to Scotland also mourning her?
- AlbertCory 4y agoDefinitely, in that period "guns" always meant artillery.
- bee_rider 4y agoIt seems a bit odd, huh? I found on google: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-24-me-49796-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-24-me-49796... Interestingly similar phrase: > Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland, but not across a wide region in between. > Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland, but not in wide areas of northern England. Searching the exact phrase > "Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland" Turned up a couple sites, one from the national academies press https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25226/chapter/3 https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25226/chapter/3 but it appears in a "background" section of a work on highway engineering, not cited. The other sites seemed like maybe sketchy textbook sharing sites, so I didn't check them out. Seems like maybe a popular bit of questionable trivia?
- schmendreck 4y ago
- pyuser583 4y ago> Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland, but not in wide areas of northern England. It’s possible for a bird to fly in a straight line from London to Scotland without flying over northern England. That line of flight would go over the Irish Sea instead of north England. Sound traveling over water faces fewer obstructions. London -> Liverpool is 178 miles. Liverpool -> Kirkcudbright 107 (over water!) Total 285 miles, 107 of which are over water, and none over northern England.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoProbably the atmospheric version of SOFAR; thermal layers in the atmosphere acting as a wave guide for very low frequency sound waves. In the ocean, the sound of explosions can travel thousands of miles in the SOFAR channel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel
- analog31 4y agoLess background noise, and better hearing, may have been factors.