Is it possible I heard Big Ben?

[zacklaws]

Last night I had a strange occurence at work, whilst in the restroom (portacabin), I was doing a bit of chilling with my eyes shut in the dark, when all of a sudden I started to hear the chimes of Big Ben followed by it starting to bong the hours before fading away. Thinking sombodies clock must be a bit out, I looked at the clock to see it was 2213.

Today I did some rough calculations, and from my place of work to middle of London as the crow flies its just over 160 miles, and with the speed of sound 760mph at sea level, it does equate to around 13 minutes for sound to travel that far. Seems strange to me, it was a quite still night, our portacabin does amplify every sound as it is a pain to have a nap in with all the noise from outside, so I really don't know what happened, perhaps the atmospherics were just right, maybe the sound waves bounced off a dense cloud formation, who knows? Another mystery.

 

[buggi]

cue "twilight zone" music

 

[Globalti]

Tsk, I told those lads to stop kicking oil drums around outside that old Portakabin. Now look what they've done!

 

[Arch]

I'm a bit sceptical. Why only hear the chimes of Big Ben, and not all the other ambient noise in London at that time?

Bearing in mind that I rarely hear the bells of York Minster ring, and that's about 500 yds away, I can't imagine sound could travel from London to Beverley.

And the 13 minutes is a neat coincidence - just as it's a neat coincidence that our moon fits exactly over our sun in an eclipse.

Either you were having a dream, having unknowlingly dozed for a second, or your watch is wrong by 13 minutes and someone nearby had the radio on Radio 4 - they play the bongs at 10pm.

Alternatively, a nearer church is out of time and has a Westminster chimes clock.

 

[buggi]

i believe you

not the same thing but occasionally on clear evenings in the summer when the wind is blowing in the right direction, you can hear the chug chug from trains from a train station that is a few miles away. IT COULD HAPPEN!!!!

 

[ianrauk]

I'll have some of what you were drinking please...

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I tend to time-shift when I watch TV. I'll deliberately start recording but only start to watch the programme about a quarter of an hour later - it's a kind of ad-nihilation. If someone nearby with bad hearing were watching ''The News at 10'' and did the same, it might give a similar effect. But that's so rationally mundane I hope it's nothing like that; it just doesn't have that ''miracles of nature'' feel about it.

But I remember seeing convex sound reflectors made from concrete that did the audio equivalent of radar before anybody had radar, detecting incoming aircraft paying courtesy visits from the Vaterland. On telly, I mean, I'm not quite that old. So a similar convex configuration is not inconceivable. Dead unlikely, clearly. I'd get in touch with the met office and start one of those ''this might sound very odd to you...'' conversations and try and find out what you can about atmospheric conditions between 10 and 10:15 last night.

 

[Ticktockmy]

Its ok the sound waves bounced of the Ionosphere, maybe the 2nd time round. Just keep taking the pills and you will be ok

 

[Reiki_chick]

I was doing a bit of chilling with my eyes shut in the dark... I looked at the clock to see it was 2213.

Were you chilling with The Doctor? 202 years...

 

[XmisterIS]

Zack - not possible! Consider that the sound will be attenuated by the atmosphere and diminishes in volume according to an R-squared law over distance and you're talking several thousand dB isolation over a few hundred miles - in other words the sound energy disappears into the background noise long before it reaches you (it will never reach you).

 

[TVC]

Zack - not possible! Consider that the sound will be attenuated by the atmosphere and diminishes in volume according to an R-squared law over distance and you're talking several thousand dB isolation over a few hundred miles - in other words the sound energy disappears into the background noise long before it reaches you (it will never reach you).

I bet you don't believe in the Easter Bunny either.

 

[GordonB]

Zack - not possible! Consider that the sound will be attenuated by the atmosphere and diminishes in volume according to an R-squared law over distance and you're talking several thousand dB isolation over a few hundred miles - in other words the sound energy disappears into the background noise long before it reaches you (it will never reach you).

The actual spherical propagation relationship is based upon 20*log(r2/r1) and if we assume that the reference distance r1 is 1m and the receiver r2 is at a distance of 300,000m then the distance attenuation in moving from 1m to roughly 200 miles is 110dB. Atmospheric absorption is very significant over such a long distance but varies according to frequency. The bell known as Big Ben has a dominant frequency of 440Hz and if we assume a temperature of 5 degrees Celcius, 20% relative humidity (it's low in winter), and pressure of 101.325 kPa, atmospheric absorption runs to 0.00351 dB per metre, which equates to 1053dB over 300,000m. Total calculated attenuation is therefore 1163dB, extremely high but slightly less than "several thousand dB". However, this is very much a crude approximation, probably nonsensical, as other atmospheric and environment effects will be highly significant; to do a full calculation would take more time than I'm prepared to devote and not give any better result.

So, could you hear Big Ben at 160 miles? Highly unlikely but I'm always reluctant to say something isn't possible. Very loud sounds can be heard at staggering distances primarily due to refraction effects, anyone with nothing better to do could have a look at http://www.flyoaklan..._atmosphere.pdf an excellent 2006 article on the subject by Tom Gabrielson of Penn State University.

Gordon

 

[XmisterIS]

The actual spherical propagation relationship is based upon 20*log(r2/r1) and if we assume that the reference distance r1 is 1m and the receiver r2 is at a distance of 300,000m then the distance attenuation in moving from 1m to roughly 200 miles is 110dB. Atmospheric absorption is very significant over such a long distance but varies according to frequency. The bell known as Big Ben has a dominant frequency of 440Hz and if we assume a temperature of 5 degrees Celcius, 20% relative humidity (it's low in winter), and pressure of 101.325 kPa, atmospheric absorption runs to 0.00351 dB per metre, which equates to 1053dB over 300,000m. Total calculated attenuation is therefore 1163dB, extremely high but slightly less than "several thousand dB". However, this is very much a crude approximation, probably nonsensical, as other atmospheric and environment effects will be highly significant; to do a full calculation would take more time than I'm prepared to devote and not give any better result.

So, could you hear Big Ben at 160 miles? Highly unlikely but I'm always reluctant to say something isn't possible. Very loud sounds can be heard at staggering distances primarily due to refraction effects, anyone with nothing better to do could have a look at http://www.flyoaklan..._atmosphere.pdf an excellent 2006 article on the subject by Tom Gabrielson of Penn State University.

Gordon

Smartarse!

 

[zacklaws]

Think I've solved the problem, in a similar thread I posted about that fat lard arsed twat who needs milking and his "Go Compare" advert and the tune stuck in my mind keeping me awake, well I've just done a 24 hour shift, followed by a good night's sleep after I flaked out, and what was one of the first things I heard when I woke up, sodding "Big Ben" chiming eight o' clock.

Completly forgot my next door neighbour has a large clock of some undetermined type that chimes every 15 minutes very loud and freaks me out when I'm trying to sleep, especially during the day when I am working nights, the inconsiderate pillock turns it off on a night so it must be loud in his own house and disturbs his own sleep, but he must stop it about eight on a night and restarts it at eight in the morning, but it also winds me up as it is never spot on, so it can be early or late by up to 10 minutes, so it can freak me out by thinking I've laid in too late or worse still wake me up too early.

Anyway, the sound of it must have been etched on my mind, whilst I was chilling with my eyes shut.

I also had a preminition of the winning lottery number's on Saturday night, but as I thought you would not believe me, I did not post them and sadly the shop at work was closed due to stock taking so I dipped out myself.

 

[GordonB]

Smartarse!

It's what people pay me for............

Gordon