6 ms·
Huh, so you can hear things explode in space, after all. If you're close enough to a warp field doing funny things, the gravitational wave strain would create a
by perihelions 2y ago
Huh, so you can hear things explode in space, after all. If you're close enough to a warp field doing funny things, the gravitational wave strain would create audible-frequency artifacts, as it wiggles your eardrums at frequencies close enough to the audible.
They derive an equation for estimated strain as a function of distance from the warp bubble collapse. How does strain translate to sound intensity, in the situation where a gravitational wave is driving sound pressure waves, and/or directly wiggling eardrums?
- WJW 2y agoWould it even wiggle the eardrums relatively to the rest of your head? Intuitively it seems that would only happen if the wavelength is exactly right, but at that wavelength the frequency would be inaudible because the speed of light is so high.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rini17 2y agoIt can move soft tissues relatively to the skull bone, resulting in changes of pressure detectable by eardrums.
- amelius 2y agoSo those whooshing sounds of spaceships in sci-fi movies/series were real after all ...
- paulb73 2y agoBut surely it isn't wiggling the tissues by sound waves passing through matter, but by vibrating space time itself? The skull shouldn't be able to resist gravity waves any more than soft tissues or 10km of lead?
- dotnet00 2y agoWhen a gwave passes through, since the space contracts or expands, you get changes in density, since bone and soft tissue are different densities, there should still be a pressure differential that can be heard.
- rini17 2y agoIt does not directly change density of matter afaik, only exerts gravitational pull, same as Earth does, and that in turn influences the body. But unlike Earth's it rapidly changes in magnitude and direction.
- hedora 2y agoI imagine the sound of the hull + everything else shuddering would probably dominate the perceived sound from eardrums or direct excitation of the air.
- dotancohen 2y agoThe hull is in a vacuum, and so are the eardrums.
- Brian_K_White 2y agoWhat part of the question or the premis stipulated that the eardrums are in vacuum? Who cares if the eardrums of a dead human vibrate? The hull and all other parts of the ship or suit around the eardrums would all also vibrate.
- dotancohen 2y agoThe idea is that the eardrums are not vibrating due to the air - so such medium is irrelevant to the question. GP specifically said "hear things explode in space".
- Brian_K_White 2y agocan't argue with that
- pezezin 2y agoIf we are talking about manned spacecraft, I would expect the interior of the hull to be held at 1 atm.
- krunck 2y agoThat ringing in your ears you get once in a while... ?
- wayvey 2y agoI'm curious about this, sometimes also when one ear suddenly sounds different for a short time.
- plasticeagle 2y agoThat's one of the little hairs in your ear dying. You're literally hearing the sound of your hearing deteriorating.
- doktrin 2y agoWell, that or earwax.
- javawizard 2y agoSource? A brief perusal around the internet seems to indicate this is an urban legend.
- ben_w 2y agoOne of the reasons I no longer ask questions on Physics stack exchange: 1. I asked "how powerful" such waves would have to be to be audible. 2. I directly linked to another question whose accepted answer said "these waves can wiggle your ear drum" 3. Got my question closed as a duplicate but the link was to different question that only asked "is it possible" (and accepted the answer "yes") without there being any answer to the "how powerful" part. 4. Got an answer which said "no, never". Of course, I can now get an infinite supply of confusing contradictions from ChatGPT, and because I ask questions from a position of ignorant curiosity, I'm equally incapable of discerning which of the mutually incompatible responses I get is definitely incorrect regardless of if it comes from an LLM or a trained physicist.
- jvanderbot 2y agoThe moderation on SE is abysmal, but it's the best moderation around for such a large, universally accessible, user-submitted knowledge store.
- chownie 2y agoA better form of moderation exists in the form of whatever they were doing before, when you could ask a question and get an answer. At one point SE was my most used resource. As of now I haven't used SE at all for I think four years. Why would you, when so much of the site's content is outdated and the moderators enforce that situation?
- Filligree 2y agoThat's for sure. It's been... five, six years? Since last time I visited any of those sites and found relevant information. Not for lack of trying, but it's all outdated or incomplete.
- digging 2y agoI find that weird, so maybe we're in different spaces. SO often comes up with relevant answers to my queries, and I'll click them if they seem helpful. They aren't always available and when they are they aren't always useful, but I still end up on it at least once or twice a month.
- powersnail 2y agoThis is stretching my imagination to a point where I don't have any practical understanding of the physics behind it. Would the eardrum be "wiggled" in the same way as a normal mechanical wave? Does the gravitational wave apply force on the eardrum? Can I touch a gravitational wave and feel it?
- thriftwy 2y agoImagine how much ridicule would a SF author in the XX century will get for suggesting his characters "hearing" FTL ships arriving into their solar system.
- xg15 2y agoOnly if the characters take it for granted. That's one of the few situations where some good expospeak can make things better. If it's established the FTL travel is specifically audible in that universe because of some gravitational eardrum-wiggling snenanigans, it would just be a perfectly valid, probably quite interesting mechanic in that universe.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- barfbagginus 2y agoIn the late 90s and early 00s you could totally have handwaved a hard SF scenario where gravitational waves from a Warp drive. Einstein calculated gravity Waves in 1911, and we saw the first evidence of them in the decay of a 1970s binary pulsar. Alcubierre published his warp spacetime in 94. So there would have been room for hard SF space opera authors to sell the idea, like Stephen Baxter, Peter F Hamilton, or Alastair Reynolds. Granted, it's amazing that now we can actually /simulate/ the sound of arriving warp ships! I imagine this will very quickly show up in short stories!
- Terr_ 2y ago> the gravitational wave strain would create audible-frequency artifacts That reminds of a considerably softer-sci-fi plot device from Earth by David Brin, where (somehow) gravitational waves of the right "tuning" could kill humans (via some kind of Roche-limit or spaghettification phenomenon) but not most other living things.
- phyzome 2y agoSomeone calculated that one of the LIGO detections (of a black hole merger) would have been audible from about 1 AU away. Of course, you would be fried, too. But it's still interesting.
- yakkityyak 2y agoNow Star Wars makes sense, thanks!
- jessriedel 2y ago> the gravitational wave strain would create audible-frequency artifacts Pretty sure this is only true if the spaceship (or the disturbance it causes) is ~100 miles across, like neutron stars and black holes are. If it’s much bigger or smaller, the frequencies will be shifted correspondingly shifted.