Why is a 100 person choir singing the same song not 100 times louder than one person?

Question

I suspect it’s something to do with sounds waves so have flaired as physics, but not sure?

In: 896

Answer 1

Sound functions on a logarithmic scale. Meaning it takes a 10 times increase in intensity/power to be heard as twice as loud. 100 people is not enough to produce the amount of power (energy) needed to reach a 100 fold increase in loudness.