loud

[oligopoly]

I have posted this question here as I presume the answer will be something man-made and/or possible industrial. What is the single loudest object in the world? Ie the thing that emits the loudest (decibel?) sound?

[poo2]

the cry of the blue whale.

i think that's true-unless i dreamt it.

[Rystan]

What a cool question. I'm not certain that there is a definitive answer, but I can tell you that the explosion of Krakatoa on August 27, 1883 (the third of four explosions, to be precise) was so loud that it was heard over 2900 miles (4640 km) away. I cannot locate information on how loud such an explosion would need to be to reach such great distances, but I imagine it is among the loudest noise ever in the course of human history.

The short answer, I suppose would be "volcanos." Of manmade objects, I would guess that the 50 megaton nuclear warhead developed and exploded by the USSR during the Cold War would take the prize. Big boom.

[Bangkok]

This link suggests that the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was louder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

[trojan10_om]

closey follwed by the terrace at vicarage road on matchdays for watford fc lol

[paddywoo]

my mum bent over to put her slippers on yesterday, it was the loudest case of gastric distress on record!

[ll_billym]

I should think that bombs are pretty loud as well.

[sprogglin]

The Toba eruption about 74000 years ago is thought to be the loudest noise ever experienced by humans. 

[helghast]

how about a star exploding?

[Korel]

The loudest thing that occurs in nature are a spieces of Prawn/shimp. that click there outer shell all in unison produceing a little bubble of air. millions and millions and milions of these moloscs doing this at once generates the loudest noise on the planet that occurs in nature.

[oligopoly]

no way! is that true, Korel?! Does it happen often?

[finex]

how about a star exploding? 
deamo Mon 22/11/04

One slight problem - Stars are in space surrounded by a vacuum. A vacuum means no air. No air means no sound waves!!

[trojan10_om]

and he asked for the loudest thing in the world!!

in space is not included... nice try

[oligopoly]

thanks for the replies
so im presuming that volcanos take the answer?
but the specific volcano is debatable

[finex]

It could be my ex-girlfriend. She's 150 miles away but I still wake up hearing her whining, the witch ;-)

[paralysis]

The Shrimp is called a pistol shrimp and its not very loud however very skilful, it can compress the water at a fine point which heats it to such a point that a shockwave is created travelling up to a metre disabling its pray, but  surely it couldn't be said that you would hear it over a volcano!

A sound is the compression of air over a distance and nukes do a pretty good job of that so maybe it has to be a nuke?

[paralysis]

My God I love Nukes!

[k12techman]

What about the 243dB Air Cannon used for seismic testing off the West coast of the United States? I have no way of explaining just how loud that is, but at 200dB, human ear bones shatter. A fish exposed to 200dB at 1 meter is reduced to small, gloppy particulate..