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Big Bang Really a Big Hum

benna writes "The New Scientist reports, 'The Big Bang sounded more like a deep hum than a bang, according to an analysis of the radiation left over from the cataclysm. Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle has created audio files of the event which can be played on a PC. "The sound is rather like a large jet plane flying 100 feet above your house in the middle of the night," he says.' Apparently the idea for the project came from an 11 year old."

20 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. Hum? Huh. by Robotech_Master · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess it just didn't know the words.

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  2. Re:Big Bang? by Transient0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The entirety of all matter constituting the eventual univers hardly qualifies as a vacuum when highly concentrated.

  3. Re:sound? by Ian+Wolf · · Score: 3, Funny

    Living on final for an international airport, I can answer this.

    In the middle of the night, its more annoying.

    --
    "The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
  4. Re:Big Bang? by DShard · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean that the unvierse has _stuff_ in it? no, no, no... At the big bang it was all empty space on the backs of turtles. Below the turtles were more turtles. Eventually the unverse cooled down and expanded enough that the turtles got sucked in. The process of turtles falling into the universe caused matter to be created.

  5. Hum? by duffbeer703 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would never describe a jet plane passing over my house as a "hum".

    I used to camp in an area where Air Force F-16's and A-10s would fly very low to approach a target range about 10 miles away. An F-16 sounds more like screeching, earth-shattering death at 100 feet than a "hum".

    And if the afterburners are on, forget it. YUO = Temporarily deaf!

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  6. You had to be there really by maharg · · Score: 4, Funny

    .. most of the action was over after 10e-30 seconds

    --

    $ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
    @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
  7. Re:parent is written by an 11 year old. by DeepBlueDay · · Score: 2, Funny

    Duh, of course it needs oxygen. How else would it breathe, let alone hum??

  8. Re:Big Bang? by Davak · · Score: 2, Funny

    From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across. At that time the sound waves were too low in frequency to be audible. To hear them, Cramer had to scale the frequencies 100,000 billion billion times.

    I am not sure of the scientific strength of a study where you take some extremely, extremely small number multiply it times "100,000 billion billion"... and then try to make some scientific sense from it.

    I'll agree that it's interesting enough that he may be able to get a grant and make some scientific cents out of it.

  9. Mirror of audio file by schtum · · Score: 1, Funny
  10. Heh heh by arvindn · · Score: 3, Funny
    Slashdotting a .wav file :)

    I wonder what the sound of the dying server will be like? A bang or a hum?

  11. According to Calvin... by rhadamanthus · · Score: 1, Funny
    It should be known as "THE HORRENDOUS SPACE KABLOOEY!!"

    I think thats pretty good...

    --rhad

    --
    Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
  12. I keep telling people... by Ribald · · Score: 3, Funny

    The reason you can't hear sound in space is because it's almost a vacuum. Back around the time of the Big Bang, matter was packed much closer together and density was far higher. Much higher, for example, than the density of the Earth's atmosphere. So yes, sound vibrations could propagate around in the early universe.

    All you people who keep complaining that 'You couldn't really hear a TIE Fighter like that!', or 'The Death Star couldn't really make a shockwave like that--it's in a vacuum!'--this is why.

    After all, it was, "A long time ago..."

    --Ribald

  13. in the vacuum of space by circletimessquare · · Score: 1, Funny

    in the vacuum of space you can't hear a slashdotted server scream

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  14. Buddha was right. by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 3, Funny

    Remember the sound of the Universe is:

    Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

    --
    Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
  15. Re: Pop-Science standard Units of measure by blizzardsoup · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sound: jet engines

    Distance: football fields

    Mass: Volkswagons (a 16" gun can shoot a volkswagon 20 miles).

    Amount of data: Number of Library of Congresses.

  16. Another stupid question by scharkalvin · · Score: 2, Funny

    What did the big bang smell like?

    "4 parsics, close enough to smell them!" - Checkov
    "Ensign, smells do not propagate through the vacuum of space" - Spock

  17. Re:Location by orangesquid · · Score: 3, Funny

    In recent news, Atari has sued God for patent infringement. Patent #6,370,256,375 covers a "two-dimensional wrap-around domain," such as the one in Pac-Man. A spokesman for Atari is reported as stating, "Although this violation appears to be in three dimensions, we beleive it is a close derivative and still covered by the patent." When it was pointed out that the patent was not issued until the late 1900s C.E., Atari responded with, "It may be very well that God created this before we did, but there is no prior art since the evidence did not surface until after our patent was granted. If it were the case that clear evidence was given beforehand, our patent would be invalidated. However, here, the patent holds."

    --
    --TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
  18. Re:Big Bang? by neelm · · Score: 2, Funny

    What if D O G really spelled cat?

  19. Re:Big Bang? by Trolling4Dollars · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey man... that's deep.

  20. Can't Resist... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I prefer a hummer to a bang anyway.