Kung fu hamster

[Mw Roofline]

On Xmas Eve I was shopping with my daughter and saw a whole load of Kung fu hamsters where you press his hand and he sings.

For a laugh I lined up about 30 of them and pressed their hands as quick as I could so they were all going off on one. It was that loud that quite a few people looked over and I got a bit embarrassed.

Then it got me thinking afterwards, how does the whole decibel thing work? If each hamster was 20db and all 30 were singing at the same time why was it so much louder if they are all outputting 20db each? Everyone seemed to look over so I don't know how much louder it was. If they are all the same volume why was it so much louder? Obviously there were a lot more of them....

I was never any good at physics and stuff...

 

[mikeyd]

I too have a hard time understanding decibels, despite knowing the maths.
If you double the sound (2 hamsters instead of 1) then the noise increases by 3dB. Double it another 4 times so you have 32 hamsters then your original 20Db will now be increased to 35dB.

But as the hamsters weren't in sync, and as each hamster was in a different position, I'm not surprised it caught peoples attention.

 

[KenGMac]

inverse Square law me thinks?

Did not fully understand it when I was studying it?

One thing worse, if possible are the maths around Venturies and either air or water flow past the ventury restriction ?

Anyone else been there?

 

[Mw Roofline]

I too have a hard time understanding decibels, despite knowing the maths.
If you double the sound (2 hamsters instead of 1) then the noise increases by 3dB. Double it another 4 times so you have 32 hamsters then your original 20Db will now be increased to 35dB.

But as the hamsters weren't in sync, and as each hamster was in a different position, I'm not surprised it caught peoples attention.

Yes not in sync so did sound a bit hectic. It's just difficult for me to work out that something at 20db can get to 35db when the extra hamsters are added when they are all pushing out 20db.

So would 50 thousand hamsters sound really really loud or is there usually a threshold.

I suppose it's the woodworm scenario. When I used to sleep over at my grandads as a kid, his furniture used to keep me awake at night, the munching noises of the millions of woodworm were so loud.

 

[bernardgreen]

The db scale of loudness is a logarithmic scale. Double the loudness adds 10 db

90db is 4 times as loud as 70 dB. Likely damage 8 hr exp

Two hamsters will not sound twice as loud unless their sounds are identical and exactly in phase and even then the loudness perceived by a listener will depend on where the listener is standing relative to the two hamsters. In open space it would be possible in an open field area for him or her to stand where the sound ( a pure tone ) from one hamster was out of phase with the sound from the other and at this point the sound would be very quiet.

 

[Micilin]

So you used toy hamsters as guinea pigs?