Sound in the Cosmos

[peter]

Sound is obviously associated with lateral vibration of gas molecules as in an atmosphere, and in the absence of such clearly there isn't going to be much of it about, but does the sun really boil away at 5777K, carrying out nuclear crunching on a prodigious scale in complete silence; do world's colide, sun's explode and black holes tear at the very fabric of reality in an environment that would not wake a sleeping baby? Has anyone actually studied sound 'out there's, ever recorded what is to be heard - if anything?

[aTOMiC]

First of all I'm guessing we're not talking about listening for electromagnetic vibrations but specifically sound waves.

In order to sample or record actual sound wave elsewhere in the universe you would have to be able to capture said sounds within the sphere of whatever event is taking place provided it is conductive. I am certain the universe contains a wide variety of deafening noises. I can imagine a probe that is capable of recording sounds present in the phenomena mentioned provided of course a probe can reach and survive in them long enough to make a recording.

I suppose it is possible to predict what a sound is like and re create it based on an examination of the available composition of an event.

[Vraith]

Yea, if you could survive within the atmosphere of the sun, there'd be sound...non-stop and overwhelming roar. Technically, I suppose, the sun is pure atmosphere all the way down...

If a mass ejection hit the Earth, it would probably ring us like a bell as long as it wasn't too big. If it was big, it would blast away the atmosphere and crisp us instantly---or if really big, crack us like an egg.
I think.

Fun fact, peter, there is a maximum volume of sound for any place that depends on the difference between vacuum and atmospheric pressure. IIRC, it's around 300-ish?? decibels at normal sea level pressure. "Louder" than that isn't sound, it's a wall of air that breaks things. Not that you'd hear it anyway...you are instantly deafened at volumes significantly lower than the max possible. [[and, IIRC, you're a dead, floppy, and leaky flesh doll below the max, too...not positive of that part.]].

[aTOMiC]

"Louder" than that isn't sound, it's a wall of air that breaks things.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Well sound travels more slowly than light, so most any observable celestial catastrophe is going to be seen at a distance where it is already deadly, before any relevant sound can register in death's wake... Or at least, I'm thinking of standing before a supernova: if you're close enough for light from the event to have reached you, well, either you're also close enough that the sound waves in theory might reach you too (even if their only medium were virtual particles in the quantum sea) but then you're gonna be way too close, or you're so far away that (A) it's not likely that light would have actually been able to reach you in the vicinity of the actual event (that is, if we had a good panoramic view of the nova, it would probably be sufficiently far enough away that the nova actually happened a long time ago and the light from it is just now reaching our vantage-point), but also (B) then we'll be far enough away that we'll never hear anything (in theoretical principle) over and above the diffuse crackle of pure quantum vacuum-flux (which wouldn't be audible in anything more than an esoteric or augmented/transhuman way).

I don't know why but that's what my mind is coming up with for a reply to this post...

[peter]

Thanks V. for that fact - I think I saw a kung-fu movie where someone in the nth Dan bracket (a woman iirc) could use such a volume to devastating effect. Paradoxically her husband held a trumpet shaped bell casing in front of her mouth which given the claim would seem to have been somewhat superfluous
Mighara - think it's time for me to get up and do a line of pure quantum-flux crackle!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I think I saw a kung-fu movie where someone in the nth Dan bracket (a woman iirc) could use such a volume to devastating effect. Paradoxically her husband held a trumpet shaped bell casing in front of her mouth which given the claim would seem to have been somewhat superfluous

He means Kung Fu Hustle.

Vraith is correct--sound of sufficient intensity has a very low frequency and moves a little slowly which acts like a wall of force trying to shake apart anything it strikes. One of the dangers of working with infrasonic sound is an inability to shield yourself from its effects--the sound waves travel through all solid matter, including the matter you are using for shielding. Sound at the correct intensity or frequency can rupture internal organs, cause temporary blindness, induce nausea, etc.

I call it "sound" even though we couldn't actually hear such frequencies or intensities--too loud and it ruptures the internal ear structure, rendering you deaf, while too low are frequencies our ears cannot detect even though we could feel the effects.

[peter]

But what could carry sound in space beyond any stellar or planetary atmosphere Hashi: a black hole would have to be tearing the fabric of reality asunder in total silence - how weird!

Kung-fu Hustle indeed Hashi - and very good indeed I have to say!

[Vraith]

But what could carry sound in space beyond any stellar or planetary atmosphere Hashi: a black hole would have to be tearing the fabric of reality asunder in total silence - how weird!

Kung-fu Hustle indeed Hashi - and very good indeed I have to say!

Hee...I like Kung Fu Hustle.

I don't know why it seems weird to you, though. Space is just the wrong medium for sound. Probably you're just used to violent events making sound cuz you grew up in atmosphere...plus watching too many epic space battles in SF. Environmental bias.

Did you happen to run across the gravitational waves conversion? They transformed it into sound...kind of a rising glissando.

And of course energy or matter that has traveled silently through space can create sound when it hits us...

It would be kinda cool, though, if we COULD hear things through space.
Oh, listen, honey! That's Jupiter rising!
Oh GOD, I HATE Mercury---sounds like those nasty screeching Valkyrie from Wagner!

[peter]

Yeah, that would work for me too!

Is light not able to transmit sound, just not at the relatively huge wavelengths of that within our audible waves: after all it is particulate after a fashion? Has it no freedom to execute transverse vibration - nah, I guess not.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@peter, any ideas on synaesthesia in this context?

[peter]

Well, normally synesthesiacs associate colours with sounds do they not? Perhaps some could draw sound out of color as well ....

But while we're on the subject - what exactly is an electromagnetic wave? What carries the wave in the absence of the ether? It's a wave of what - particles, maybe...... radiation - that tells me nothing. Just what is the damn thing?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Ooooh, QM-time...

Photons, and IIRC all relevantly similar particles, exhibit both point-particulate and wave behavior, depending on a certain context (observation/measurement). Now, the geometry of this situation lent itself eventually to quantum field theory, which posits that the four known basic physical forces all exist via a universal field (the distinction with gravity is that this field is spacetime itself I think). So individual photons emerge from within a general electromagnetic field, as perturbations or something thereof. Light travels through itself, you might say (the whole light-information equivalence or however that all goes).

I'm pretty sure there are errors in the paragraph that I just wrote but anyway, there are forms of synaesthesia where visual information gets converted into auditory information, and Vraith's mention of gravitational-wave sound translation amounts, it might seem, to *artificial* synaesthesia...

[Vraith]

Well, normally synesthesiacs associate colours with sounds do they not? Perhaps some could draw sound out of color as well ....

There are many different kinds---like dozens or more---the sound/color one is just the one that gets all the attention.

As for "what IS the damn thing?"
That seems to run into the "thing itself" problem...
We know properties, or how it behaves in particular environments/contexts...we have geo/mathematical descriptions.

We have to remember, though, that sound is easier in almost all ways---because sound isn't a fundamental force, it is the physical effect of force/energy---it, quite literally IS the medium in a way that electromag isn't.