University of Alberta audiologists aren't trying to ruinyour parties. They aretrying to make parties safer for your ears.
The sound made by popping balloons, they found, can be louder than a shotgun. And, as you can imagine, that can cause problems.
Bill Hodgetts is one of the study's co-authors. He spoke with As it Happens guest host Helen Mann from Edmonton. Here is part oftheir conversation.
[A]ny loud impulse noise that we might think is really transientis something thatcan actually do some prettyserious damage to our ears.-Bill Hodgetts, associate professor at the University of Alberta and co-author of a study examining the effect of balloon popping on long-term hearing.
Helen Mann: Professor Hodgetts, what have you got against balloons?
Bill Hodgetts: I have absolutely nothing against balloons. In fact, the whole paper was designed out of curiosity. We do have kids, and we were interested in whether or not these things were as loud as we thought they were. But we were really moreinterested in raising the conversationup about the potential hazards of a really short noise over our long-term hearing health — balloons, firecrackers, guns, any loud impulse noise that we might think is really transient and doesn't need to be worried about is something thatcan actually do some prettyserious damage to our ears.
HM: Most of us have been surrounded by balloons at parties since we were little kids. So when did you get this idea that maybe you should investigate how loud the popping sound can be?
Study co-author Dylan Scott blows up a balloon until it pops, emitting a sound louder than a 12-gauge shotgun
6 years ago
Duration 0:19
Study co-author Dylan Scott blows up a balloon until it pops, emitting a sound louder than a 12-gauge shotgun
BH: We have lots of birthday parties in our lives these days, my co-author and I, with four kids amongst us. Kids just love balloons. I'm not trying to take that fun and joy away from children. Just popping them is something we ought to be a little bit cautious about, because the amount of damage that can occur at that kind of an impulse might not seem obvious, and it might not happen for a very long time, but it's a little bit like getting a really bad sunburn. You'll heal up and things will be OK, but you might have done some longer term damage.
HM: So how do you go about measuring the volume of balloon pops?
It's about 4 decibels higher than a 12-gauge shotgun. I think no parent would let their child shoot a shotgun without hearing protection.- Bill Hodgetts
BH: We started with a mannequin that we use oftenin audiology research. And we found that the microphone wasn't capable of detecting how loud the impulse was. We had to get a different microphone that was more sensitive to these loud sounds. And then we blew them up 'til they ruptured— that was the loudest of course, the explosion was the most intense. Then we crushed them to simulate sitting on a balloon, or having one crushed in your ear. And then we also pin-popped them. And the pin-pop and crush were a little bit lower, because you have a different breaking point. So where the pin goes in, the balloon just peels back and there's less of a shock wave, whereas the ones you blow up to the full exhaustion, it's just a ripple of sound that's quite intense.
HM: So what was the highest decibel level that you measured?
Dylan Scott blows up a balloon to the point of rupture
6 years ago
Duration 0:14
Dylan Scott blows up a balloon to the point of rupture
BH: The average that we got for the 'right-to-exhaustion' next to the microphone was 168 decibels. It's about 4 decibels higher than a 12-gauge shotgun, measured in a different study. And I think no parent would let their child shoot a shotgun without hearing protection. I would hope they wouldn't let their child shoot a shotgun at a party anyway, but that's the same kind of level we're talking about. People wear safety glasses when they're using a table saw 'cause they're worried about getting something in their eye. But their ears don't bleed. And suddenly you go into the later part of your life and you've got ringing in your ears, and conversations are hard to hear, especially in background noise. And no hearing aid yet on the market can replace what your inner ear was capable of. And it never grows back.
HM: Are you able to estimate the number of balloon pops an ear could endure before it would suffer from damage?
If they accidentally go off, they accidentally go off. But doing it intentionally— they're pretty loud, and we shouldn't really be doing that.-Bill Hodgetts
BH: Yeah, that's in the paper. It's tricky to do that because you can't just blow up a whole bunch of balloons in your kids' ears to know what the actual number is. But we got somewhere in the region of that 168 DB that you wouldn't really want it near a kid's ear, and maybe only one or two exposures to an adult before you'd reach your maximum dose for a day.
HM: What do your daughters think about balloons now?
BH: They actually still like them. We use them for science experiments. The older girl's sort of like the balloon police now, and she educates all her friends. And actually, it's not banned in our houses. If they accidentally go off, they accidentally go off. But doing it intentionally— I think that's the message we'd like to get out there: they're pretty loud, and we shouldn't really be doing that.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to the full interview with Bill Hodgetts.
Dylan Scott blows up a balloon to the point of rupture
BH: The average that we got for the 'right-to-exhaustion' next to the microphone was 168 decibels. It's about 4 decibels higher than a 12-gauge shotgun, measured in a different study.
The tone of a gunshot ranges from high-pitched pistols, which sound like a popping balloon, to larger caliber rifles that sound more like a bomb or cannon.
Researchers found a balloon inflated to rupture peaks at 168 decibels (dB). That's louder than a 12 gauge shotgun which hits 165 dB and louder than thunder at 120 dB. It's also louder than a firecracker which peaks at 140 dB, according to the Center for Hearing, Speech and Language.
The air in a balloon is at a higher pressure than its surroundings because the elastic tension of the balloon skin is pulling inwards. ... The high-pressure air that was inside the balloon is now free to expand and this creates a pressure wave that our ears hear as a bang. Q.
To be more specific, while balloons themselves can in no way affect hearing, the volume from a popped balloon potentially could. Any exposure to sound that reaches above 85 decibels (dB) has the potential to damage your ears and lead to hearing loss. The louder the sound, the less time it takes for damage to occur.
Depending on the size and initial pressure in the balloon, the oscillation between compression and expansion takes different times. That's why popping different balloons produces different pitches." (1) Marder et al (2) suggest that the noise is an artifact of the balloon latex ripping faster than the speed of sound.
Almost all firearms create noise that is over the 140-dB level. A small . 22-caliber rifle can produce noise around 140 dB, while big-bore rifles and pistols can produce sound over 175 dB.
"Gunshots are very crisp and they have a certain timing or cadence to them." "Fireworks are very loud, just like gunfire, but they are very sporadic. There is a lot of crackling, sometimes they echo and sometimes there is a whistle before the fireworks.
The molecules in a balloon are under higher pressure and their concentration is higher (packed more closely together) hence the diffusion from inside to outside takes place, but by the very nature of diffusion outside to inside takes place very fast, when pricked with a pin making the balloon to deflate.
“Pops and bangs” are created by unburned fuel in the exhaust system. When excess fuel enters the exhaust system it increases in temperature and ignites inside the exhaust instead of the combustion chamber. The noise can be exaggerated by fitting a decat or full decat exhaust system.
The lower the pressure in the environment, the more the balloon will expand.Once the difference becomes too big, the balloon will pop. Studies for helium filled latex balloons have shown that this happens at an altitude of about 28,000 to 30,000 feet.
He noticed that the helium balloons seemed to pop with a louder sound than the air-filled balloons. This led to a series of experiments to see if this was true. In general, for round balloons, he found that air was louder. How- ever, for long balloons, helium was louder.
The pressure you're blowing against forces your Eustachian tubes open a little which drains pressure and fluid stuck in your ear. It's a common misconception that this method is dangerous. As long as you don't force too much pressure or sneeze like this, you won't have risks of bursting your eardrum.
Loud noise can damage cells and membranes in the cochlea. Listening to loud noise for a long time can overwork hair cells in the ear, which can cause these cells to die. The hearing loss progresses as long as the exposure continues. Harmful effects might continue even after noise exposure has stopped.
If the balloon is fully inflated on the ground, the gas will either need to be vented out (zero-pressure balloons) and wasted as it expands. In the case of super-pressure balloons (closed system), the excess gas would exert excessive pressure on the skin and ultimately can cause it to rupture.
As you add more gas, the pressure inside the balloon increases, and in response, the balloon expands... up to a point, that is! If you put in too much helium, and the pressure inside the balloon exceeds the atmospheric pressure on the outside of the balloon, the balloon will burst.
In a similar fashion, warfighters are exposed to impulsive noise from weapons systems such as handguns, rifles, rockets, and howitzers. These range in intensity from 157 dBP (peak unweighted decibels) for a 5.56mm M16 rifle to 183 dBP for a 105mm towed howitzer.
For the average ear, fireworks and gunshots can sound very similar. But Creighton says there are a few simple ways to distinguish the two and save law enforcement some time. “So the biggest way to tell the difference is going to be how you're hearing the sound,” Creighton says.
This tendency is why we have static electricity. When two objects – such as your hair and the balloon – rub together, one loses some of its electrons to the other. This makes one object positively charged and the other object negatively charged. The opposites then are attracted to each other.
When you touch another person or an object, you can suddenly discharge the static as an electrical shock. Similarly, when you rub a balloon on your head it causes opposite static charges to build up both on your hair and the balloon.
TFE was loudest for all cases except less-inflated cylindrical balloons, for which all gases were about the same loudness. Air was usually 2nd loudest but relatively close to He. Long-skinny He balloons were quietest. All cylindrical balloons had relatively small loudness differences between gases.
Foil balloons will also expand or shrink, depending on temperatures rising or falling. But due to their sturdier material, they won't pop as easily as latex balloons.
Sounds above 150 dB have the potential of causing life-threatening issues. Sounds between 170-200 dB are so intense that they can cause lethal issues like pulmonary embolisms, pulmonary contusions, or even burst lungs.
Human screams can be quite loud, possibly exceeding 100 dB (as of March 2019, the world record is 129 dB!) —but you probably want to avoid that because screams that loud can hurt your ears!
It may be possible to destroy everything with a loud enough sound. NASA estimates the mass energy of the universe at 4x1069 joules. But that number that is considerably smaller than the energy created by 1,100 decibels of sound.
For the first time in history, earthlings can hear what a black hole sounds like: a low-pitched groaning, as if a very creaky heavy door was being opened again and again.
The Krakatoa volcanic eruption: Not only did it cause serious damage to the island, the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 created the loudest sound ever reported at 180 dB. It was so loud it was heard 3,000 miles (5,000 km) away.
I mean technically, the "pops" is really indicative of poor tuning: extra, unburnt fuel makes it past the combustion chamber to the exhaust system and then "pops" due to the heat in the exhaust system, sometimes even resulting in flames out of the back of the exhaust.
The pop is a pressure wave of air rushing out. Inside a balloon they're all packed together and the skin is pulled tight. If you pop it, all the air whooshes out, making a pressure wave of fast-moving air our ears hear as a bang.
One experiment shows that the balloon reaches a relatively constant pressure of 810 mmHg until it gets close to its maximum elasticity point and then increases to 820, 830 and finally 840 mmHg when it pops.
According to Charles's law, the temperature of a gas is directly related to its volume. Thus the volume of the balloon increases, decreasing the density. Hot air rises inside the balloon, and this lifts the balloon.
Is helium really that dangerous? It can be. Breathing in pure helium deprives the body of oxygen, as if you were holding your breath. If you couldn't breathe at all, you'd start to die in minutes—as soon as your body exhausted the supply of oxygen stored in the blood.
A small .22-caliber rifle can produce noise around 140 dB, while big-bore rifles and pistols can produce sound over 175 dB. Firing guns in a place where sounds can reverberate, or bounce off walls and other structures, can make noises louder and increase the risk of hearing loss.
"Gunshots are very crisp and they have a certain timing or cadence to them." "Fireworks are very loud, just like gunfire, but they are very sporadic. There is a lot of crackling, sometimes they echo and sometimes there is a whistle before the fireworks. You can see that it sounds kind of similar.
For the most part, between 145 and 170 dB. That's right, even the quietest firearm is louder than a jet engine. That might seem impossible, but keep in mind that jet engines produce a constant noise, whereas guns fire in a split second, which makes them seem quieter than they are.
A muzzle blast sound occurs because of the rapidly expanding propellant gasses that actually cause the bullet to accelerate; the gas expands extremely quickly, and the resulting pressure wave from that explosive expansion creates a whole lot of noise.
It's basically a supersonic boom, as the shock wave forms a cone behind the speeding bullet. You don't always hear it either, if you happen to be standing at more than a 90 degree angle to the line of fire.
Modern rifles are able to import a velocity of about 900m/s to a bullet which is about three times more than the speed of sound in air (340m/s). Even if we take into account the air friction which retards the bullet, it still travels faster than sound.
What are the loudest fireworks? The loudest type of firework available to the public to buy is a mine. Mine fireworks, sometimes also called dump cakes, release one single shot or multiple shots all at once from ground level.
A gunshot is a single discharge of a gun, typically a man-portable firearm, producing a visible flash, a powerful and loud shockwave and often chemical gunshot residue.
Fires can't burn in the oxygen-free vacuum of space, but guns can shoot. Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer, a chemical that will trigger the explosion of gunpowder, and thus the firing of a bullet, wherever you are in the universe. No atmospheric oxygen required.
A 1-Ton TNT Bomb: An explosion from this bomb would measure 210 dB. 2. A 5.0 Richter Earth Quake: A strong earthquake such as this reaches a decibel level of 235.
When bullets fly through the air, they do so at amazing speeds. The fastest bullets travel more than 2,600 feet per second. That's equivalent to over 1,800 miles per hour. To put that in perspective, it's amazing to realize that bullets travel over twice the speed of sound!
The loudest sound in recorded history came from the volcanic eruption on the Indonesian island Krakatoa at 10.02 a.m. on August 27, 1883. The explosion caused two thirds of the island to collapse and formed tsunami waves as high as 46 m (151 ft) rocking ships as far away as South Africa.
Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
