how far can human ears hear?

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Can’t find an answer haha

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The distance greatly depends on the frequency. Higher frequencies are harder to hear at further distances and lower frequencies carry better distance for us. Also, depends on the energy carried in the noise. A gunshot can be heard about 2 miles away in the right conditions.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Depends on the kind of sound and the volume. But I can remember a situation where we were able to hear an offshore oil rig that was over 15 miles / 25 kilometers out on sea. And I even lived 3 miles / 5 kilometers from the beach.

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is no distance limit if the pressure wave is strong enough you can hear it. Because the pressure drops with the distance the sound source needs to be stronger the farther away it is.

The furthest event on record sound was from when the volcano Krakatoa exploded in 1883 and the sound could be heard 4800 km away,

For a more recent the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980 [was recorded](https://freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/21432/) from a distance of 225km

Technically the limit of the earth would be a sound generated at the antipode ie the opposite side of the earth from you that is 20,037 km away. If the source move in any direction from that point it moved closer to you.

You can compare it to our eye where there is no distance limit. As long as enough phones of visible light hit your eye you can see it. The farther object in the sky you can see with your naked eye is the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away. Everything farther away is to dim to see with just your eyes but you can see a lot longer with the help of a telescope.

The only distance limit is because of the age of the universe and the expansion shift light to a lower wavelength. We can pick up the Cosmic Microwave Background that was light emitted when the universe becomes transparent 300 000 years after the big bang. It is today downshifted to microwave but you can receive in on earth.