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roosty_butte t1_j4uszj7 wrote

Reply to comment by ellipsis31 in What happens to the energy of sound in space? by full_hammer

If you moved that tuning fork directly into a pocket or air, would it produce its tone?

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Buddahrific t1_j4wfdcw wrote

A "pocket" of air would want to dissipate from it's own pressure in a vacuum/near vacuum. If one were to exist long enough to stick a tuning fork into it, it would dissipate faster. Think like a pile of sand on a vibrating table (not a resonating table with high and low energy standing waves, but just a table where the whole thing is vibrating at the same rate).

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roosty_butte t1_j4wi5a2 wrote

Nah, I mean as a purely theoretical situation. The bubble of air is not affected by the vacuum of space.

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Buddahrific t1_j4wma2y wrote

Pressure plays an essential role in sound (sound is pressure), so it's hard to separate the two. A vibrating tuning fork would transfer kinetic energy to anything that gets close enough to touch it, including a pocket of air that is somehow held together in a vacuum. If you had a microphone inside that, I think it would pick up those vibrations as sound.

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