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

If you turn on 100 lightbulbs, it’s 100x brighter than one because they’re all producing their own light, all those beams of light combine to be more powerful. 100 people all producing sound waves are doing pretty much the same but because sound is just vibrations in the air, they tend to sync up or overlap, it’s the difference between putting 100 small stones on a scale and seeing the weight increase by 100, and throwing 100 stones into a pond and watching the ripples overlap and cancel each other out