How does a flash bang work?
In: Technology
As the name suggest the explosives and the design of the bomb is chosen to create a large flight of light as well as a loud bang. Human sensors are designed to work in a wide range of conditions and will therefore adjust to various levels of sensory input. The mechanisms for this is different depending on the sensors. Firstly the retina in your eyes work by constantly generating chemicals which gets broken down when light hits them which is how we sense the levels of light and actually see. If you see a bright light it will break down all the chemicals in your retina making you go blind until the cells can reproduce the chemicals and you will slowly gain back your eyesight in the darker conditions. At the same time the eye detect the bright light and closes down the pupil. But it is not able to react fast enough for a flashbang and when it reacts and closes your pupil it is too late and you end up with a tiny pupil only allowing a bit of light though to your retina for a few seconds which also makes you blind.
For your ears there is two effects going on as well. Firstly the sensors in the ear consists of hairs of different lengths which will sway depending on the frequency of sound. But a flashbang does not produce any frequencies only a large single shockwave. So it is able to set all the hairs in your ears swinging at the same time. It takes a bit of time for these to settle down and actually respond to more quiet sounds around you. So you go deaf for a few seconds. But secondly some of these hairs will be permanently damaged. The effect is that these will send a constant signal to your brain. So when your hearing does return the brain gets the signal that a few single frequencies are still loud, like a whistle or something. The brain actually focuses on these high pitch constant sounds because they are the loudest and tries to make out what it is. And it takes the brain even more seconds to find out that the hairs that these nerves are connected to are actually damaged and it will eventually just ignore them for the rest of your life. First then will the brain be able to focus on the other sounds around you and start analyzing these.
There may also be other neurological conditions happening. We do not have the best ability to analyze these situations in a controlled environment with equipment scanning everything that is going on. Our research into epilepsy does show that big sensory inputs to the brain can have effects throughout the brain and nervous system. But these effects are not fully understood if there are any at all or if they are just natural responses to suddenly going blind and deaf while getting stormed by armed assailants.
Sensory overload. Creates a very bright light to temporarily blind people, and a loud bang that gives tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and disables a person’s ability to both see and hear opponents, which totally disorientates them until they’re recovered.
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