Propulsion by Sound

[UnaverageJoe]

Interesting thought.

Sound is caused by the vibration of an object. Also, sound causes vibration. Example. Hook a couple amps to an extremely loud stereo and you get the whole house shaking. So if the sound waves could cause a house to shake, you could propel a rocket off the ground, in theory. All that would need to be done would be to concentrate a sound from the ground to the rocket. And thats my problem. Does anyone know how to concentrate sound waves on a specific point?

 

[Quantos]

There was a story I saw a few years back on some monks that moved rocks using sound, Ill need to see if I can find the link

 

[Skeptical]

Interesting thought.

Sound is caused by the vibration of an object. Also, sound causes vibration. Example. Hook a couple amps to an extremely loud stereo and you get the whole house shaking. So if the sound waves could cause a house to shake, you could propel a rocket off the ground, in theory. All that would need to be done would be to concentrate a sound from the ground to the rocket. And thats my problem. Does anyone know how to concentrate sound waves on a specific point?

How do you "concentrate" sound. As with any radially propagating wave, its intensity falls off as 1/r^2. Furthermore, since sound waves arise from the compression and rarefication of air, they carry little energy at high altitudes where pressure and density drop by a significant amount which is where one would expect a rocket to operate.

 

[UnaverageJoe]

Ah....I see. So as the vibrations travel higher, they lose strength. So there is no possible way to use sound to lift off, correct? Well, that theory goes out the window.

 

[DaveS]

Good theory again! Even if it was wrong... keep on thinking!

 

[ImmortalAwakened]

Interesting thought.

Sound is caused by the vibration of an object. Also, sound causes vibration. Example. Hook a couple amps to an extremely loud stereo and you get the whole house shaking. So if the sound waves could cause a house to shake, you could propel a rocket off the ground, in theory. All that would need to be done would be to concentrate a sound from the ground to the rocket. And thats my problem. Does anyone know how to concentrate sound waves on a specific point?

This may potentially be possible, although you may want to wear ear plugs when firing a rocket into space this way.

Believe it or not, they also make a device that concentrates a thin stream of water under very high pressure, so that it can act like a laser and cut through rock. That's right, water is used by construction workers to cut through rock, when finely pressured like a laser.

 

[DaveS]

hmm. interesting. I guess it is like if you increased erosion/weathering by a load and concentrated it one small area?

 

[ImmortalAwakened]

hmm. interesting. I guess it is like if you increased erosion/weathering by a load and concentrated it one small area?

Exactly. In fact, lasers themselves are simply concentrated light. I suppose if you concentrate anything and project it, it will do something.

 

[UnaverageJoe]

Then perhaps concentrating sound form the ground up in several small rays might lift a rocket, persay?

 

[Locrian]

That's right, water is used by construction workers to cut through rock, when finely pressured like a laser.

Careful, you made it sound here that lasers are under high pressure!

Yea the water jets are fantastic. Better than lasers for most projects. You can cut a lot deeper with water jets than lasers in most materials, though laser cutting still has important applications. I was just talking to a man who runs a machine shop the other day and he was pining over how nice it would be to have a good water jet cutting system. I hope he gets it, would save us a lot of money we spend on milling.

 

[DaveS]

Then perhaps concentrating sound form the ground up in several small rays might lift a rocket, persay?

hmm.. again nice theory.. but.

The first problem would be actually concentrating the sound, the second would be from 'ground up'. The amount of sound and hence the amount of vibration needed would probably create nothing short of a size 10 earthquake!

The other problem of course then is loss of energy, which would actually happen very quickly due to particles 'altruism' of wanting to share all this energy with a neighbour. On that matter you must also consider the possile amount of damage caused to the actual space craft if it has a huge 'soundwave' blasting through it - look what a loud sound such as a jet does to our ear drums, it quite literally shatters them.

 

[UnaverageJoe]

AH. Oh well. Ill figure it out eventually.

 

[Stellar Vision]

Ah here we go. I believe it was on the Discovery Channel perhaps where I saw this unique idea to launch a projectile with a high-powered ground-based laser. The laser fires in pulses and heats up the air within the cone essentially creating mini explosions that propell the craft upwards.

While it doesn't look as though this method will be as effective on a very large scale it may have many other potential uses, and it does seem to demonstate the general idea in the OP to some extent I think; although it's not exactly propulsion by sound per se.

 

[DaveS]

That is an interesting idea!

 

[UnaverageJoe]

So...in lamens terms....travel by heat. That sounds pretty good. We could call it the Oven Effect.