The most powerful sound in water

We all know that to boil water you need to raise the temperature high. Recently, scientists from Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered that it is possible to boil water in a chemical reactor by using sound waves instead of heat.

The researchers used a small column of water, about the width of a human hair, and aimed an even thinner X-ray at it in small pulses of high energy so that they could detect it. When the beams touched the water, they immediately evaporated the molecules in that spot. The shock wave that’s created can be seen moving left and right of the target point.

We couldn’t actually hear it because the sound was created in a vacuum chamber. Sound levels can be very loud, so these levels are possible. That’s why there was such a powerful sound in the Little Bighorn River in Montana. It’s also worth noting that it set the record for the loudest sound in water ever recorded. Anything below 200 degrees Fahrenheit would not boil the water molecules. The temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit is such that the sound waves cannot be transmitted from one side to the other.

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