If soundwaves are compression waves in air molecules, and thermal energy is vibrations in air molecules, why aren’t loud things hot?

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Like if I have a really bright flashlight I can feel heat from the beam, but I can blast a speaker at max volume and I might even feel the vibrations in my hand, but there’s no change in temperature.

Is this a glitch in the matrix?

In: Physics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Actually ultrasound can heat tissue slightly and you can produce high heat with high intensity ultrasound [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_focused_ultrasound#Temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_focused_ultrasound#Temperature). It is due to absorption of sound waves in tissue but I am not sure that is the mechanism you are talking about

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