Why do high pitched noises break glass

When sound hits an object — such as a champagne flute — it excites the particles inside, causing them to vibrate. Each object will naturally vibrate at a particular frequency — known as its resonant frequency, and if you choose a soundwave that matches that pitch, the object will start to shake more and more vigorously. Think of it like the act of pushing someone on a swing in the park, where you give them a little shove each time they reach you.

Get it wrong and your efforts will actually slow them down. This video is no longer available. Sound w aves of any sort set up sympathetic vibrations in the materials they impinge upon, which is the principle behind many many things, including telephones and radar.

As volume increases, it displaces air molecules. The sound passes from molecule to molecule until it hits the glass. But to break glass, you need to broadcast not only a sound that is just the right frequency, but also has a high enough amplitude to exceed the strength of the glass to resist those vibrations. When the sound gets too loud for the glass to vibrate, it shatters the glass. Instead, they just blast the stone with lots of sound energy. For this procedure you lie on a water-filled cushion.

X-rays or ultrasound tests are used to locate the stone. And if she sings loudly enough, the glass will vibrate itself to smithereens. Fracture depends on the size of the initial defects. Invisible cracks and chinks cover every material's surface but their size and location can vary wildly, according to Kysar. Wine glasses that look identical to the naked eye could have radically different fracture strengths, enabling some to withstand much higher levels of volume than others.

Volume is a key player in the glass shattering game, because the loudness of a sound is directly related to the extent it displaces air molecules. In essence, the sound passes from molecule to molecule until it hits the glass. As Brunhilde sings louder, she is, in effect, pushing air at the glass harder. The effect is much like pushing a kid on a swing—the harder each shove, the sooner the kid will go over the top.

But a strong shove has little effect unless it is timed so it matches the natural oscillation of the swing—just as a hopeful glass breaker must sing a note that matches the glass's resonant frequency. The physics involved in the art of vocal destruction seem straightforward enough.

But although stories of powerful singers shattering wine goblets, vases and eyeglasses abound, real instances of this feat are suspiciously missing from the historical record. The famous tenor Enrico Caruso was said to have had the ability, but after he died his wife denied these rumors. What gives? One Bud Light commercial has two dudes going to an opera with bottles of the beer. Cue one Brawn Hilda soprano aria Another dude turns around and shows the other two that they should have brought cans.

One commercial for Diet Mountain Dew ends with a lady topping her two eagle-tattoo sporting co-workers by letting out a piercing eagle-esque scream and shattering all the glass walls. Then she lets out a smaller eep to destroy the glass vase sitting on the table. Said portrait is alive and to prove itself to its owner it keeps singing higher and higher until it falls apart. Only its mouth stays in one piece and continues to sing. Seen in this Nickelodeon station ID from the s, where a female opera singer with a huge orange "Nickelodeon" wig sings a high note that causes the conductor's eyeglasses to break.

Table tennis legend Timo Boll breaks his robot opponent's glasses this way in a match of glass harps. In this Walker Crisps ad , Mariah Carey gets into a quarrel with an elf over the last pack of chips, and she ends the quarrel with an Incredibly Long Note which, among other things, breaks a crew's glasses. The lips sing the last word in such a high-pitched voice that it cracks the screen , with the cracks remaining visible for the rest of the commercial.

In the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman episode, "Murder Music," has a scheme of kidnapping a rock band, forcing them to perform special music and then have a special ship with giant speakers that emits that music superloud that can shatter whole buildings and drive people insane.

In Tamagotchi , specifically the "Three Hell Devil Sisters" episodes, Hapichamatchi's crying is so loud that it can make other Tamagotchis faint. In episode 94a, her crying is demonstrated to also be loud enough to break several glass windows in the palace she's in. Asian Animation. Happy Heroes : In Season 3 episode 26, the sound of the Supermen using a special team attack to defeat the villains is loud enough to crack the lens on Big M. Slowy when she wakes up to find Goat Village completely destroyed.

Her yelling is so loud that it breaks the glass on a picture of Mr. Slowy hanging in his room. Comic Books. Gaston Lagaffe 's dreadful instrument , the Gaffophone. Banshee from the X-Men has used this a few times. In Watchmen , Nite-Owl's Owlship screecher speakers has that effect on glass. Black Canary 's "canary cry" has been used to shatter glass.

Wonder Woman : At distance and before she really picks up volume Silver Swan's scream can shatter glass, once she's at a target and as loud as she can be she can shatter brick and destroy buildings as she did to Cassie Sandsmark 's school.

Just how powerful her scream is depends on which Silver Swan is in question however, Valerie can blow out eardrums and shatter glass but cannot scream down a brick wall.

Tintin internally comments that fortunately, the windows are made of safety glass. In The Calculus Affair , the objects randomly breaking in Marlinspike Castle turn out to be the results of Professor Calculus's ultrasound experiments.

This gets him kidnapped by Bordurians who want him to develop weapons of mass destruction for them and Syldavians who try to steal him from the Bordurians for the same end. Comic Strips.

Why it didn't break the TV nearby is unexplained. The keys lit up as Doc pounded on them, the noise of his opus shattering all glass objects within a ten-mile radius and fritzing air traffic control processors across half the planet. Multi-tentacled aliens tied themselves in knots as the harmonics disrupted the equilibrium of their inner ears.

Sympathetic tremors collapsed intercontinental single-span bridges. A primitive tribe in the Ice Forests of Wier thought the noise was the thundering of an angry God, and so committed mass suicide by having sex with horrible slibberdorphs. The Adventures of Tintin : The villain hires opera diva Bianca Castafiore, knowing her voice will shatter the bulletproof glass cabinet displaying a model ship he is planning on stealing.

The villains have Fievel imprisoned inside a glass bottle, but fortunately his sister Tanya takes the stage at that point, and her song breaks the bottle. Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers : Clarabelle somehow manages to shatter the full moon during her high note.

In Shrek the Third Prince Charming shatters the audience members' wine glasses, opera glasses and even pearl necklaces with his girly high-pitched singing during his play.