Sound that can vapourize water discovered
Scientists have discovered what they believe is the loudest possible underwater sound. This sound is so powerful that it can vaporize water on contact. It is caused by a tiny water jet -- about half the width of a human hair -- being hit by an even thinner X-ray laser.You can't actually hear this sound, because it was created in a vacuum chamber. That's probably for the best, considering that, at around 270 decibels, these rumbling pressure waves are even louder than NASA's loudest-ever rocket launch (which measured about 205 decibels). However, you can see the sound's microscopically devastating effects in action, thanks to a series of ultra-slow-motion videos recorded at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, as part of a new study.
The pulsing laser immediately splits the water jet in two, vaporizing the fluid that it touches while sending powerful pressure waves wobbling down either side of the jet. These waves create more waves and, by about 10 nanoseconds in, fizzing black clouds of collapsing bubbles form on each side of the cavity.According to Claudiu Stan, a physicist at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and one of the study co-authors, these pressure waves likely represent the loudest possible underwater sound. If it were any louder, the sound "would actually boil the liquid and once the water boils, the sound has no medium to pass through.Why try to create a sound that rips apart its medium?.
Understanding the limits of underwater sound could help researchers design future experiments.Scientists regularly suspend little bits of intriguing matter -- say, a specific type of protein crystal, for example -- in fluid jets and blast them with lasers to determine their chemical properties. If scientists know precisely how intense a laser pulse can be without accidentally destroying the liquid, that could improve the way these experiments are performed, Stan said.
The pulsing laser immediately splits the water jet in two, vaporizing the fluid that it touches while sending powerful pressure waves wobbling down either side of the jet. These waves create more waves and, by about 10 nanoseconds in, fizzing black clouds of collapsing bubbles form on each side of the cavity.According to Claudiu Stan, a physicist at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and one of the study co-authors, these pressure waves likely represent the loudest possible underwater sound. If it were any louder, the sound "would actually boil the liquid and once the water boils, the sound has no medium to pass through.Why try to create a sound that rips apart its medium?.
Understanding the limits of underwater sound could help researchers design future experiments.Scientists regularly suspend little bits of intriguing matter -- say, a specific type of protein crystal, for example -- in fluid jets and blast them with lasers to determine their chemical properties. If scientists know precisely how intense a laser pulse can be without accidentally destroying the liquid, that could improve the way these experiments are performed, Stan said.
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