yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Can Opera Singers Shatter Glass? | StarTalk


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

All right, another question. Michael Bruce from Mountain View in California. Is it a myth that opera singers can shatter glass by singing high enough?

I've not seen it done, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible because there's certain frequencies that are called resonant frequencies in other objects.

And have you ever done this?

Go up to a tree that's way thicker than anything you would think of toppling. Okay, and then you just start pushing.

If there is a rhythm with which you can push a tree that pumps the tree in exactly the motion that you would originally set it to do, it's the same thing as pumping when you're on a swing.

It's how you can just put yourself into motion without touching anything. You sort of swing your legs right at the right moment; that will add to that motion.

Then you tuck your legs back right at the right moment. So you can do this to a tree, and you will hit a resonant frequency of the tree. And if you do this enough, you can actually snap a tree in half.

And so, did you say you try it fast?

Yeah, oh yeah, I do it all the time. It's fun. No, no, no, I don't do it to the point where I kill the tree, but it's fun to just watch this pumping.

It's literally physics. In physics, we call it pumping. You're pumping a system in the resonant frequency of the system itself. The system wants to sway at that rate.

Now, if you pump it in exactly that way, all that energy stays there, and then the tree starts blowing, waving in the breeze. And it's a sense of power over nature. I did this; I still do it today.

So, somebody's vocal cord, somebody's voice, right? So, you get an object that has a resonant frequency.

Can a human voice reach it at a high enough volume, and then it'll start vibrating?

Okay, if it's at the resonant frequency, and if you can vibrate it with enough energy at that frequency, the glass is not going to be able to stay with you, and you'll just crack it.

Cool?

Yeah, yeah, so that, so yes, it's possible.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

More Articles

View All
How To Convert Customers With Cold Emails | Startup School
[Music] Hi, I’m Aarin Epstein, Group Partner at YC, and in this video, I’m going to talk all about how to write cold emails that convert. So first, I’m going to give you the all-time best email outreach hack. You ready? Get a warm intro! This is the most…
Estimating quotients
We are told to use estimation to tell whether each estimated quotient is reasonable or unreasonable. So we have a bunch of estimated quotients here. Someone is estimating that 2419 divided by 3 is roughly equal to 7500. We have to figure out is that reaso…
Frames of reference | Movement and forces | Middle school physics | Khan Academy
When we make new discoveries, we need to be able to share them with others. The first thing we have to do is make sure everyone is on the same page. We do this by using units and frames of reference, which are also called reference frames. We talk about u…
What Was Black Sunday? | The Long Road Home
We got the intel brief we got about 30 days before we left. Said that you’re going to the safest place in Iraq. In April 2004, one year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was controlled by a US-led transitional government. This period marked a relati…
Graphing arithmetic sequences | Algebra I (TX TEKS) | Khan Academy
We are told that F of n is equal to F of n minus 1 plus 6. So, the value of this function for each term n is defined in terms of the value of the function for previous terms. We’re essentially adding six to the previous term for each whole number n, where…
Sold My Tesla Stock
What’s a Pilon? It’s Musk here. So, I don’t usually make these kinds of videos, but given the recent and unprecedented price surge of Tesla stock over these last few days, I felt like this would be worth addressing. We could talk about exactly what’s goin…