Does sound leave an imprint on the environment?

[ExoticMatter773]

Does sound leave a sound? An imprint that can be studied at a later time or does that energy just disappear forever into the cosmos never to be seen or heard again?

Edited May 23, 2018 by ExoticMatter773
Sentence was incomplete

[DrP]

It 'may' do  -  they say that a butterfly flapping it's wings could cause a hurricane somewhere else.  I doubt it though - it would have to be a very big sound. Also - how would you trace it? It is all so convoluted. I expect it is impossible. How would you trace it back through the air.  Air dissipates quickly and any wave or 'picture' of the sound wave in the air will be no more after the event. It would be like trying to write your name on puddle of water - it dissipates.

I guess an avalanche caused by a big bang is the result of sonic vibration...  but you would be hard pressed (probably impossible) to trace the cause of the avalanche back to any particular noise. How would you trace it?

Other examples I can think of would be shouting at a bowl of water - you could look at the patterns of the ripples to get some info regarding how loud your shout was.  A glass breaking at the right frequency is a physical observation of sound effecting matter.  A giant digeridoo blasted at the ground in a dessert might give a distinctive pattern in the sand. An injured eardrum from a loud noise is evidence of said noise possibly.....  but none of this is what you are describing and I can't think of an example of where it is possible.

What did you have in mind?

 

-  sorry - reading this back I am drivelling rubbish and just random thoughts about the OP. I think I know what he is getting at and it isn't possible from what I can tell beyond the sound wave actually physically marking a dusty surface or making a wave in a liquid.

How about a shock wave frozen in a gel like solid? 

 

[studiot]

Only if you can get Alexa to do what you tell her.

 

[DrP]

or of course an audio cassette or any other sound recording device.

Edited May 23, 2018 by DrP

[ExoticMatter773]

I’m thinking more along the lines of for example people leaving their fingerprints in a room after they have entered it and touched things. Since sound is mechanical energy for something on a smaller scale like a room or I dont know a box/beaker. Could the energy released from the sound leave some type of residue? I understand that the heat being released when sound is produced is almost imperceptible/insignificant but at one point we couldn’t see DNA either.

[DrP]

6 minutes ago, ExoticMatter773 said:

I’m thinking more along the lines of for example people leaving their fingerprints in a room after they have entered it and touched things. Since sound is mechanical energy for something on a smaller scale like a room or I dont know a box/beaker. Could the energy released from the sound leave some type of residue? I understand that the heat being released when sound is produced is almost imperceptible/insignificant but at one point we couldn’t see DNA either.

Only if it is recorded in a media. Like with footprints - you only see them if the surface the person walked on is soft enough to take the print  -  on concrete, no.

With sound, you can get it to vibrate a needle that leaves a trace in something plastic. You can then vibrate a similar needle in the grooves of the plastic to recover the sound. It isn't going to hang around in the air, it isn't viscous enough. Or you can get it to vibrate a membrane with a magnet on it as it passes over some magnetic tape. When the tape passes over a similar magnet you can cause it to vibrate. Attach it to a speaker and you hear your original recording.

[Strange]

I vaguely remember reading a science fiction story where they were able to recreate the sounds of the past from things like the patterns left in a painting by the vibrations the paintbrush picked up. (Can't remember any more than that, I'm afraid!)

[ExoticMatter773]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

I vaguely remember reading a science fiction story where they were able to recreate the sounds of the past from things like the patterns left in a painting by the vibrations the paintbrush picked up. (Can't remember any more than that, I'm afraid!)

Ive read something similar to the idea I’m presenting in a book as well. I’m always curious about how close things are or aren’t to fiction. 

[DrP]

Then there are echoes. The louder the sound the longer the 'residue' or echo is left behind.  I remember reading at school that mount Krakatoa was heard 7 times as the sound wave from the initial explosion travelled around the planet over and over.    

 

If you want fiction, then yea - you can come up with any plausible sciencey sounding stuff. You could say that the protean in our hair in the fine structure records the patterns of the vibrations in the air - thus recording every sound we hear for life on a molecular level... but it wouldn't be real. You need something that will deform under the sound wave and then hold it's shape so that the wave can be copied or replicated or played back.

[geordief]

What about the recent gravitational wave ....has that left a permanent mark on the equipment (or the bodies it passed through ) or has it moved on without a trace behind?

 

Would any imprint would be greater closer to the source? 

 

I seem to remember we were invited to listen to the "sound" of the Binary Black Hole Merger at the time.

 

OT Could  Newton have  predicted Black Holes?

Edited May 23, 2018 by geordief

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, ExoticMatter773 said:

Does sound leave a sound? An imprint that can be studied at a later time or does that energy just disappear forever into the cosmos never to be seen or heard again?

Earthquakes generally leave a mark that can be studied later, but that mark certainly isn't a sound.

[Sensei]

Quote

Does sound leave an imprint on the environment?

Your question could be rephrased to "does light leave an imprint on the environment?"..

Suppose so, you have lightbulb inside of hermetic sealed container/room, and it is turned on or off, periodically in random moments..

Are you (observer outside of the room) able to tell in which moments lightbulb was turned on or off... ?

 

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Your question could be rephrased to "does light leave an imprint on the environment?"..

Yes, bleaching, warming, etc... 

[geordief]

5 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Your question could be rephrased to "does light leave an imprint on the environment?"..

Suppose so, you have lightbulb inside of hermetic sealed container/room, and it is turned on or off, periodically in random moments..

Are you (observer outside of the room) able to tell in which moments lightbulb was turned on or off... ?

 

Tree rings. They can be made to play a tune and are caused by summer/winter cycles.

[dimreepr]

12 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Suppose so, you have lightbulb inside of hermetic sealed container/room, and it is turned on or off, periodically in random moments..

Are you (observer outside of the room) able to tell in which moments lightbulb was turned on or off... ?

6 minutes ago, geordief said:

Tree rings. They can be made to play a tune and are caused by summer/winter cycles.

Not sure this rabbit hole is worth getting your hare dirty...

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by dimreepr

[studiot]

2 hours ago, ExoticMatter773 said:

I’m thinking more along the lines of for example people leaving their fingerprints in a room after they have entered it and touched things. Since sound is mechanical energy for something on a smaller scale like a room or I dont know a box/beaker. Could the energy released from the sound leave some type of residue? I understand that the heat being released when sound is produced is almost imperceptible/insignificant but at one point we couldn’t see DNA either.

I know you are looking for something more subtle, but sound is a pressure pulse or pulses.

If you want permanent then that pulse has to do some damage to the environment, eg shattering glass, being powerful enough to blow the microphone diaphragm , simply shift a pile of sand grains or dust.

But if you can accept temporary then you must specify a time scale. For instance if I walk across the grass, I will leave a recognisable trail, but that will fade over time as the grass straightens up.

Note fingerprints also do 'damage' as the ridge pattern is pressed into the greases or other soft material.

But no, sound will not leave a permanent or semi permanent aura that a psychic or sensitive could return and pick up.

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Yes, bleaching, warming, etc... 

Without light from the Sun, entire life on the Earth would die, except extremophiles, in a matter of a few days or months..

 

The question was: if source of energy is behind a "wall" can you get any idea, about initial source of energy when photon was emitted..

e.g. you had single gamma photon with high energy, it has been absorbed, two gamma photons reemitted, with lower energies..

etc. etc. repeat millions of times.. and you end up with bunch of low energy photons instead of just one single high energy photon..

 

To rephrase it once again, are you able to tell what moves chess figures had to make on chessboard, looking just at it at the end of the game, to figure out path they took to end up the way, they are, when you view them (at the end of match)...

 

 

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Without light from the Sun, entire life on the Earth would die, except extremophiles, in a matter of a few days or months..

So it would be noticed... Have you read the OP?

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Sensei said:

The question was: if source of energy is behind a "wall" can you get any idea, about initial source of energy when photon was emitted..

Not the original question. An irrelevant one you made up, maybe.

1 hour ago, Sensei said:

To rephrase it once again, are you able to tell what moves chess figures had to make on chessboard, looking just at it at the end of the game, to figure out path they took to end up the way, they are, when you view them (at the end of match)...

No.

 

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Not the original question.

Strange, you must have really bad day today.. don't you  see correlation between analogy between "sound wave source in the black box" and "light wave source in the black box".. ?

To the level in which you even gave negative?!

Sorry, but initial OP question, I am reading as "can we get original sound wave from remains of it after millions/billions of reflections (or other interactions) with matter?"..

By using analogy, I am just trying to give answer.. and it deserved negative rep.. ?! Are you completely blind.. WTF?!

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Sensei

[YaDinghus]

On 5/23/2018 at 4:18 PM, Sensei said:

To rephrase it once again, are you able to tell what moves chess figures had to make on chessboard, looking just at it at the end of the game, to figure out path they took to end up the way, they are, when you view them (at the end of match)...

In principle yes. In practice, no. Maybe that's what you meant to say the entire time, since the rules of physics and a game of chess are deterministic, but actually retrieving this information is an entirely different matter