Scientists from Standford Created a Sound so Loud It Instantly Boils Water

In the metal community, music has the power to figuratively “obliterate you.” But now a team of researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, based at Standford University, have proven that intense sound can actually do just that.

These geniuses have produced a “record-shattering underwater sound with an intensity that eclipses that of a rocket launch,” using the “Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS)” which instantly vaporizes water molecules—essentially meaning it boils water on contact! “The pressure created by the shockwaves was just below the breaking point, suggesting it was the limit of how loud sound can get underwater.” If you didn’t get any of the scientific mumbo-jumbo, don’t worry, my brain wanted to shut down as well.

Cnet.com tells us what we’re all wondering—the sound is equivalent to 270 decibels (that’s louder than a rocket launch!), and if the naked ear experienced this sound, “the intensity would not only rupture your eardrums but probably your heart and lungs as well.”

So maybe, for the time being, we can stick to being metaphorically obliterated.

You can read more about the scientific process via the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and read their published findings in the most recent issue of Physical Review Fluids.

[via Kerrang!]