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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5190084 No.5190084 [Reply] [Original]

hey /sci/ i was wondering. if you had a wall of water flowing down in a room. would that water block the sound from getting to the other side. or muffle it. and why

>> No.5190095

It would muffle it to a different extent depending on its thickness. The sound waves are just waves of pressure that would be transferred to the water, then from the water through to the air on the other side. the imperfect transfer of these waves is what causes it to be muffled and sound distorted as well.

>> No.5190100

The sound coming through the wall would seem quieter and less distinct, which can also be called "muffled".

The density and mass of water is greater than that of air, so the amplitude of the sound waves would decrease significantly in the water-wall, and they would remain decreased when they reach you.

>> No.5190103

you can hear sounds through the walls of your home, why would water be any different?

the only factor in this case is how much sound is absorbed, affected by the thickness of the wall.

>> No.5190109
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5190109

>>5190095
so what if you had two people making conversation and there was a guy on the other side trying to listen in. what would that person hear. depending on how loud it is he could hear them or not.

>> No.5190111

>>5190100
Yeah, what he said

>> No.5190112

>>5190103
but the water is creating sound also while it is moving down. walls dont.

>> No.5190120

>>5190112
what does that have to do with anything.

you can still hear people talk if there's a radio between you and them.

are you asking, like, how loud they'd have to be for you to hear them? i don't understand what you want.

>> No.5190123

>>5190084
Yes, it would muffle the sound... Not as much as a wall but more than just nothing. Has to due with the density of the particles.

>> No.5190125

>>5190103

This is not an entirely relatable alegory. The walls in your home are solid, therefore they allow the sound waves to pass through them with very little manipulation to frequency, only to amplitude. This is because the structure of a solid is highly organized and is not significantly altered by a sound wave.

A water-wall is obviously made of a liquid. Liquids are not nearly as well organized as a solid (in fact, it is not organized at all, only in the sense that it obeys laws such as gravity and electrostatic repulsion, but the individual molecules in a fluid body are affected by one another only in polar forces such as hydrogen bonding). Because of the lack of structure in a water-wall, as well as the constant motion of the individual particles, the frequency (and therefore the information) of a sound wave will be far less well-defined when it comes out on the other side.

So no, this is not like sound passing through the walls in your home.

>> No.5190149

>>5190125
yes, it is like sound passing through the walls in your home.

if the sound is sufficiently loud enough, it will go through matter. this is a fact. liquid or solid.

the question OP seems to be asking is "how loud would it have to be to get through X amount of water", because he doesn't accept the answer of muffling.

>> No.5190155
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5190155

>Sound going through solid walls
>holy shit i never thought of that like this

>> No.5190156

what if you had two tiny pieces of glass or plastic on each side of that running stream of water. would it act as a brick

>> No.5190158
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5190158

>>5190156

>> No.5190163

have you ever been on the other side of a waterfall?

I can never hear much on the other side because of the sound of the water.
Probably doesn't help that I'm mostly deaf.

>> No.5190171

>>5190163

>I'm mostly deaf

then how can you possibly feel qualified to answer this

>> No.5190177

>>5190149

All that I'm pointing out is that the pitch and therefore the quality of the sound would be altered by the very disorganized movement of the individual water molecules in the water-wall.

>> No.5190181

it would be muffled, like an ordinary wall

>> No.5190183

>>5190181
but the wall is solid and silent.

>> No.5190196

I see no reason to believe it would block it.
I think it would muffle it, like a wall would. The muffling might even be improved because the water is liquid. Intuitively it seems like a liquid would attenuate sound vibrations more than a solid of similar density would, but I don't know if it's actually true.

>> No.5190201

Hey guise
Guise
What if the water were falling at supersonic speeds

>> No.5190209 [DELETED] 
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5190209

Hey /sci/, question for y'all. I like to freeze my water bottles, as it cools them faster. Sometimes when I take them out, they're still liquid, but after a few seconds they freeze in my hand! How does that work?

>> No.5190219

>>5190209
the water is supercooled. if you shake the ice or touch it it will turn to ice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSPzMva9_CE

>> No.5190223

>>5190201

>Implying the water could "fall" at supersonic speeds

Something as light and small as a sheet of water the size of a wall would have a considerably low terminal velocity, and would therefore have to be accelerated by some kind of machine that would be able to exert a high force on it. It is likely that the sound produced by this machine and the sound created by the water moving at such a speed would completely destroy the form of the original sound that was meant to pass through the water-wall.

>> No.5190226

>>5190223
you could push the water to supersonic speeds with the help of air.

>> No.5190231
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5190231

>>5190201
oh shit son

>> No.5190236

>>5190226

You could, but in order to make air push water, you need to push the air. To push the air fast enough (create a high enough pressure in the air to move an adjacent body of water at supersonic speeds) you would need a high-power motor of some kind, which is what I said before. Such a machine would likely have operational consequences that would distort the form of the sound that is attempting to be passed through the water-wall.

>> No.5190245

ITT no one has ever been under water and been able to hear sounds above water.