Don't Lose The Music: Home: Are you at risk?: About noise: Noise trivia

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Interesting, but probably useless

Weird, amusing and sometimes just plain odd. Read our noise trivia here.

According to thatsweird.net, the loudest noise ever known was produced by a volcanic eruption at Krakatoa, near Javan, in 1883. The sound was heard in Australia, 5000 km away.
Volcanic eruptions are often recorded at over 272dB

The origin of the name of U2’s lead singer has been attributed to a dog food and the Latin phrase for 'good voice'. The most widely accepted explanation seems to be that he was named after a hearing aid shop. There was a shop in the O'Connell Street area of Dublin which sold 'Bonavox' hearing aids, and people reckon he may have adapted the name to become Bono.

Concorde was the only passenger plane to fly faster than the speed of sound (it flew at 2100kph).

Deep in the ocean, the sperm whale uses sound to stun or kill its prey. It sends out giant grunts as very powerful bursts of sound that can disable nearby fish, squid and other victims.

Humans are the only animals that can copy the sounds of their own speech and understand the meaning.

A musical piece exists which has no sound at all. It was composed by the American composer John Cage in 1954. It is called '4 minutes 33 seconds'. A pianist sits at the piano and plays nothing for exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds…

Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings.

A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

If you encountered a tyrannosaurus rex, chances are you'd scream. But It wouldn't hear you! Its cochlear duct couldn't accommodate sounds of 3 kHz, the pitch of a human scream. An archaeopteryx would hear you though! (Story from New Scientist magazine, issue 2533, January 07 2006, page 13).

Legend has it that Keith Moon (drummer with The Who) was standing in the lobby of a mid-western American hotel, with his portable cassette player blasting out some of the Who's latest work. After a few minutes, the normally crowded lobby had become deserted so the hotel manager asked Keith to turn the “noise” down to a quieter level. In true rock and roll spirit, Moon kept playing his tape at a really high volume - cue another plea from the manger to turn the noise off. This battle of wills continued until the manager told Keith that if he didn’t turn the machine off he'd call the police. It was time for a compromise. Moon said he would go back to his room if the manager would go with him. This seemed a bit strange but it was agreed and the pair went up to Keith's room on the 9th floor. When they got there, Moon asked the manager to wait outside the door while he went inside. Shortly after, Moon came back out - followed by a dynamite explosion coming from his bathroom. As smoke filled the hallway, Moon turned to the horrified manager and calmly explained, "That my friend is noise. This on the other hand," as he turned on his cassette player again, "is The Who."

An article in the Sept 04 edition of Reuters Health reported that loud music can collapse a lung. Researchers described the cases of four young men who suffered a lung collapse - technically called pneumothorax - that appeared to be triggered by loud music. Three of the men were at a concert or club when the incident occurred, while the fourth was in his car, which had a 1,000 watt bass speaker. Researchers believe if doctors routinely ask pneumothorax patients about their exposure to loud music, the reported number of injuries will increase.

The word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent".