Eli5: How do sonar vibrations rupture your insides and kill you ?

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Eli5: How do sonar vibrations rupture your insides and kill you ?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I’ve never heard of this happening, so I’m not confirming that this is something that *does* happen. I’m just gonna explain how it *could*.

Every object has one (or more) resonant frequencies. Think of a swing. If you push at the right time, it gets swinging to huge heights. If you push at the wrong time, it just sort of wiggles near the bottom.

Your insides have their own resonant frequency. Since sonar is essentially just air pushing back and forth at a constant speed, if sonar comes in at your insides’ resonant frequency, it pretty much pushes your insides back and forth, just like a swing, and makes them rip apart.

This is not going to happen with boat sonars though. For this to happen, a strong sonar would have to be tuned to something incredibly close to your resonant frequency. Boats don’t send out sonars that strong, or with that frequency, so you’re not going to explode swimming under a boat.