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
Median, mean and skew from density curves | AP Statistics | Khan Academy
In other videos, we introduce ourselves to the idea of a density curve, which is a summary of a distribution—a distribution of data. In the future, we’ll also look at things like probability density. But what I want to talk about in this video is to thin…
Chasing Wolverines With Help From Ultra-Runners | National Geographic
[Music] This place is right on the fringe of so many important carnivore species’ habitat. In February of 2014, a camera trap here that the Department of Wildlife Resources had set up captured a wolverine on camera. That was the first time that had happen…
What The U.S. Need to Do?
And you’ve studied how empires rise and how empires fall over the past several hundred years. You’ve said that generally speaking, empires collapsed for three main reasons. The first is debt, the second is internal conflict—so you know, polarity within a …
Sam Altman - How to Succeed with a Startup
Okay, today I’m going to talk about how to succeed with a startup. Obviously, more than can be said here in 20 minutes, but I will do the best I can. The most important thing, the number one lesson we try to teach startups, is that the degree to which you…
A school of hippos gives an aggressive warning sign | Primal Survivor: Extreme African Safari
(Exhales forcefully) But it’s not crocodiles I should have been watching out for. Instead, it’s one of the most temperamental animals out here. (Hippo snorting) Wow, there are a lot of eyes looking in my direction, a lot of ears pointed in my direction. T…
Dinosaurs 101 | National Geographic
(Dramatic music) (Roaring) - [Narrator] Probably no other creatures on the planet have struck as much fear and awe in our hearts as the dinosaurs. (Roaring) The earliest dinosaurs appeared about 245 million years ago during the Triassic Period, when most …