Sonoluminescense: Sound-induced Stars form in Water

Sonoluminescense is the phenomenon where a star-like oscillating light appears in the midst of a container of water when it is treated with sound.



This empirically reproducible experiment opens up a whole host of theories regarding how such an event occurs. Regardless of the reason why, sonoluminescense overwhelmingly exhibits the features of a twinkling star



The current idea is that the oscillations from the sound waves causes the bubble to expand and collapse, and upon collapsing it creates massive amounts of energy. When the light is formed within the jar due to the bubble collapsing, it reaches temperatures over 20,000K (19,726 degrees Celsius) Source. Starlight is estimated to be between 2,500-50,000 degrees Celsius.

Noble Gases, which are called such because they have a complete electron valence shell and are very stable, such as Xenon, Argon, Krypton, Neon and Helium are all very consistently detected in distant starlight. Surely enough, researchers who are on the trail of the empirical value of sonoluminescence thought it would be a good idea to see the effect of adding these noble gases to their sonoluminescence experiments.

Regular experiments conducted in pure water generate sonoluminescence with a radiance of about 1.5 x 10^-12 W/nm at the high end.

When Helium is added to the mixture, the luminescent effect is 30x brighter.
Neon increases the luminescence by 37x.
Argon increases the luminescence by 50x.
KRypton increases the luminscence by 52x.
Xenon increases the luminescence by 65x.

Therefore, this laboratory effect is more resembling the nature of stars with the presence of noble gases.

It has recently been observed that 99.99%+ of all matter in the universe is in the plasma state. Plasma is the 4th state of matter, and it exists as positively charged ions co-existing in a sea of electrons. The layer of earth's atmosphere, called the ionosphere, is called such because of the abundance of particles existing in the plasma state in their ion form. Surely enough, the majority of these particles are H+, and O+ ions:



Water in its plasma state would exist as H+ ions, O+ ions, and electrons, just like we observe in our own ionosphere. It is well known that the light in the jar is in fact water exhibiting the plasma hot state of matter. This makes the sonoluminescence experiments all the more relevant because they consist of twinkling lights in the midst of water. Therefore, these sonoluminescent effects exhibited in the lab may be exactly what we are observing with starlight.

Greetings,
Several years ago they thought they had over unity, but they didn't, or didn't have enough to make it commercially viable.
I believe some experimenters were trying to use this phenomenon to extract on board hydrogen to operate a car.

In any case the visual effects are interesting.

a reply to: cooperton
So, this is utterly mind blowing for anyone who has studied alchemy, or the related arts.

Thank you so much for posting this.

originally posted by: cooperton
This makes the sonoluminescence experiments all the more relevant because they consist of twinkling lights in the midst of water. Therefore, these sonoluminescent effects exhibited in the lab may be exactly what we are observing with starlight.

A lot of starlight is a thermal effect, and sonoluminescence is a thermal effect, so they have that much in common, both reaching relatively high temperatures, but they are much different beyond that.

Sonoluminescence has an origin in imploding bubbles excited by sound, where the bubbles are about a millionth of a meter.

Starlight results from fusion in the interior of a star, transmitting heat to the outer layer of the star. These are much larger, where astronomers think the mass needs to be over 80 times the mass of Jupiuter to ignite fusion:

astronomy.com...

Based on the heat and pressure required for nuclear fusion in a star’s core, astronomers believe the cutoff for the smallest stars may be around 0.08 times the mass of the Sun. That’s still roughly 83 to 85 times Jupiter’s mass. In fact, the smallest star discovered to date, EBLM J0555-57Ab, weighs in at about 85 times the mass of Jupiter.

There are other ways to generate light through thermal effects, such as incandescent light bulbs. Here is an article comparing light from light bulbs to light from stars:

Starlight inside a light bulb

Stars and incandescent lamps are not the only examples of objects that shine because they are hot. Lava and heated metal worked by a blacksmith are other, albeit less common, examples of incandescent bodies. Like the lamp’s filament, they glow because they are hot; they emit red light when their temperature is lower and yellow/orange light when it is higher.

So the blackbody radiation can be demonstrated with many things, including incandescent light bulbs.

When you add the noble gases, such as neon, the radiation emitted is no longer just blackbody radiation because the excited electrons emit a certain amount of energy when they drop back to a lower energy level. We can see this effect in neon signs. While stars do contain some noble gases, they do not dominate the star's mass nor the starlight spectrum, which again is largely thermal radiation.

So when you add neon to a sonoluminescence experiment, it would seem to have more in common with a neon sign than a star.

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: cooperton
So, this is utterly mind blowing for anyone who has studied alchemy, or the related arts.

I don't know why you say that. Among other things, alchemists wanted to change base metals into gold. We have particle accelerators that can do that, but I've never heard of a sonoluminescence experiment doing that.

The old ‘stars are nuclear reactors’ line.

Why are sun spots cooler then the surface of the sun?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

This is so freaking awesome and interesting.
Thank you so much for posting.

Yeah, my gaseous eruptions are three times as high as my body temperature.
Sarge says I warm the bed sometimes....

a reply to: Dalamax

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: cooperton
This makes the sonoluminescence experiments all the more relevant because they consist of twinkling lights in the midst of water. Therefore, these sonoluminescent effects exhibited in the lab may be exactly what we are observing with starlight.

A lot of starlight is a thermal effect, and sonoluminescence is a thermal effect, so they have that much in common, both reaching relatively high temperatures, but they are much different beyond that.

Sonoluminescence has an origin in imploding bubbles excited by sound, where the bubbles are about a millionth of a meter.

Starlight results from fusion in the interior of a star, transmitting heat to the outer layer of the star. These are much larger, where astronomers think the mass needs to be over 80 times the mass of Jupiuter to ignite fusion:

astronomy.com...

Based on the heat and pressure required for nuclear fusion in a star’s core, astronomers believe the cutoff for the smallest stars may be around 0.08 times the mass of the Sun. That’s still roughly 83 to 85 times Jupiter’s mass. In fact, the smallest star discovered to date, EBLM J0555-57Ab, weighs in at about 85 times the mass of Jupiter.

There are other ways to generate light through thermal effects, such as incandescent light bulbs. Here is an article comparing light from light bulbs to light from stars:

Starlight inside a light bulb

Stars and incandescent lamps are not the only examples of objects that shine because they are hot. Lava and heated metal worked by a blacksmith are other, albeit less common, examples of incandescent bodies. Like the lamp’s filament, they glow because they are hot; they emit red light when their temperature is lower and yellow/orange light when it is higher.

So the blackbody radiation can be demonstrated with many things, including incandescent light bulbs.

When you add the noble gases, such as neon, the radiation emitted is no longer just blackbody radiation because the excited electrons emit a certain amount of energy when they drop back to a lower energy level. We can see this effect in neon signs. While stars do contain some noble gases, they do not dominate the star's mass nor the starlight spectrum, which again is largely thermal radiation.

So when you add neon to a sonoluminescence experiment, it would seem to have more in common with a neon sign than a star.

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: cooperton
So, this is utterly mind blowing for anyone who has studied alchemy, or the related arts.

I don't know why you say that. Among other things, alchemists wanted to change base metals into gold. We have particle accelerators that can do that, but I've never heard of a sonoluminescence experiment doing that.

Context is everything my friend

a reply to: cooperton

I remeber this used by the religious and/or flat earth nutters, to make a point.
something along the lines of separating the heavenly waters... Yadayada...

Nevertheless i found it a very interesting occurrence.

Like most, they first observed this phenomenon in nature.

The mantis shrimps claws are so strong they create the sonoluminescense effects on impact.

originally posted by: Dalamax
The old ‘stars are nuclear reactors’ line.

Why are sun spots cooler then the surface of the sun?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You can find plenty of science and pseudoscience on sunspots online. I seem to recall you have a preference for the latter. But thanks for pointing out another way sonoluminescence is not so "star-like" since I never heard of sunspots being observed in sonoluminescence. Other than the star-like temperatures reached, sonoluminescence really isn't much like real stars, so I think some of the claims of similarities go a bit too far. Again you can compare incandescent light bulbs to stars too, since they can get very hot, but they aren't much like stars either.

originally posted by: Terpene
The mantis shrimps claws are so strong they create the sonoluminescense effects on impact.

That's what the video claims, but did you figure out why they show an animation of it producing light, instead of an actual video of an actual shrimp producing light (screenshot of the animation in that video):



I think the reason they show us an animation of the light is because you can't actually see the light, so when the light is too dim to see, it doesn't seem very "star-like" even if the temperatures inside the tiny bubble reach "star-like" temperatures for an extremely tiny fraction of a second.

The simple problem with this is that while there is a light visible, there is no detectable sound source that could produce them. Neither is there any evidence of a medium through which the sound could propagate, given that they are demonstrably many light years away. Producing those stars night after night, century after century, millennium after millennium in (to all intents and purposes) the same place just isn't possible.

This was on ATS years ago!
good to see it again!
if you wish to try doing this for your self go see,
video
he made two um! stars in water.

I have a great idea...
apply this princepul to the magnets in a plasma reactor!
sighs, no one will and we lose a great thing....

a reply to: cooperton

Thanks for the post cooperton , fascinating.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Oh no, I'm so sorry to add some content to an interesting physical phenomenon, relly bad choice of video too... Admited I didn't even watch it...

For all I know, space could be filled with a plethora of mantis shrimp creating our night sky, the therm a symphony of stars gets a whole new meaning.

what's your beef with sonoluminesence? it stands as a physical phenomenon, it's implications might still be written in the stars? I don't know where the scientific community puts it... Probably just an effect of thermodynamics?

originally posted by: Terpene
what's your beef with sonoluminesence?

I have no beef with sonoluminescence, in fact I find it a fascinating phenomenon. I do have a beef with claims of links between sonoluminescence and stars being carried too far. As already agreed the high temperatures being similar and resulting in light are not in dispute, but claims of similarities beyond that are what I have a beef with, like this statement in the opening post.

Opening post:

...these sonoluminescent effects exhibited in the lab may be exactly what we are observing with starlight.

That goes way beyond what can be scientifically justified, and it's the main problem I have with the opening post.

Back to your post:

it stands as a physical phenomenon, it's implications might still be written in the stars?

I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but the light from sonoluminescence results from light radiating at high temperatures, as it does with stars, molten lava, hot steel in a steel mill, incandescent light bulbs, etc.

I don't know where the scientific community puts it... Probably just an effect of thermodynamics?

It's still being researched but it's at least partially understood as a relatively unique way of generating high temperatures using sound waves to create collapsing bubbles about a millionth of a meter wide. That's nothing like the way stars generate their heat. But, they both get hot, and give off light as a result of the temperature, as do many other things; that's the similarity.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
The simple problem with this is that while there is a light visible, there is no detectable sound source that could produce them. Neither is there any evidence of a medium through which the sound could propagate, given that they are demonstrably many light years away. Producing those stars night after night, century after century, millennium after millennium in (to all intents and purposes) the same place just isn't possible.

It's nice to see someone else also recognizes this problem with the opening post, thanks!

Yep. Pseudo science like electromagnetic theory.

Since magnetic fields are caused by electricity, only, and the universe is chock a block full of magnetic fields I can see your point.

Back to today’s programming...

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Okay. But can we heat up water to run a turbine with it?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Mantis power plant

originally posted by: buddha
This was on ATS years ago!
good to see it again!
if you wish to try doing this for your self go see,
video
he made two um! stars in water.

That's a good video, which in addition to teaching how to replicate the experiment at home, teaches a larger lesson of how many details one must get right to replicate an experiment. So overall, I like the video and give respect to the experimenter for having patience and overcoming all the obstacles he encountered. He spent a year and a half trying many variations before he finally got it to work. He was asked why don't we see more of these experiments on youtube, and his answer is because it's a lot of work, and there's no real benefit. It's just something cool to look at.

The only small quibble I have with his video is the "neutron star" in his title and mentioned in his video, which has a specific meaning in English, referring to an ultra-dense type of star that's made mostly of neutrons, which is not quite massive enough to form a black hole. So the light he makes from sonoluminescence has nothing to do with "neutron stars" as the term is used in English. It could be a translation problem, he has a thick accent, maybe Russian.

So why is he talking about neutrons then? He doesn't mention Rusi P. Taleyarkhan by name, but since Taleyarkhan had claimed neutron production from his sonoluminescence experiments in sort of a variation of "cold fusion", the youtuber was apparently also trying to detect neutrons to see if he could validate Taleyarkhan's claims of neutron production or not, is my guess.

Rusi P. Taleyarkhan is a nuclear engineer and academic fraudster who has been a faculty member in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University since 2003...

In 2008, he was judged guilty of research misconduct for "falsification of the research record" by a Purdue review board.

Part of Taleyarkhan's misconduct was claiming someone had replicated his research when it wasn't true, and Taleyarkhan behaved suspiciously when a team of other scientists tried to work with him to replicate and confirm his results...they never could, and Taleyarkhan was stripped of his Arden Bement Jr. Professorship and had other negative consequences as a result of his misconduct. So it was interesting the youtuber tried to detect neutrons, and also became one more person who also couldn't replicate Taleyarkhan's claimed neutrons.

Taleyarkhan also applied for a patent on behalf of the US department of energy (DOE), but it was refused, and the DOE dropped the claim:

The examiner called the experiment a variation of discredited cold fusion, found that there was "no reputable evidence of record to support any allegations or claims that the invention is capable of operating as indicated", and found that there was not enough detail for others to replicate the invention. The field of fusion suffered from many flawed claims, thus the examiner asked for additional proof that the radiation was generated from fusion and not from other sources. An appeal was not filed because the Department of Energy had dropped the claim in December 2005

I have a great idea...
apply this princepul to the magnets in a plasma reactor!
sighs, no one will and we lose a great thing....

Why don't you do it yourself? You just posted a video of an experimenter doing a sonoluminescence experiment himself.

originally posted by: dashen
Okay. But can we heat up water to run a turbine with it?

Many things in the youtuber's video were interesting. He mentioned he had to refrigerate (and de-gas) the water to see the sonoluminescence, which he could only see within a narrow range of chilled water temperatures, plus or minus five degrees. If the water was too cold or too warm, he could not produce the effect. His explanation of power usage was a little confusing but it sounded like power consumption was in the range of 1-3 Watts. He was using I think a 100 ml flask of water, so that power level would take some time to heat the water by five degrees. The experimenter's conclusion was that it's not useful for anything. (maybe just scientific curiosity, but no practical applications, anyway).

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
" ...these sonoluminescent effects exhibited in the lab may be exactly what we are observing with starlight."


That goes way beyond what can be scientifically justified, and it's the main problem I have with the opening post.

Of course this is not the currently accepted theory for starlight, but I think it is a worthwhile consideration. We have not yet proven that distant stars are actually suns with planets. The evidence for exoplanets is sparse, and mainly from what I found consists of observable oscillations of stars that they assume to be exoplanets eclipsing the light. This is silly for many reasons, but to sum it up I don't think there is enough evidence to say these are distant suns.

With that being said, there is already a phenomenon in relativity theory called Hawking Radiation in which light is emitted from a black hole system. Hawking Radiation was also theorized by Dr. Eberlein in her paper: "Theory of quantum radiation observed as sonoluminescence". She insists that the vacuum effect created by the collapsing bubble in the sonoluminescence effect is similar to what we would expect with the scattering of light by black holes which is what is referred to as Hawking Radiation.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
The simple problem with this is that while there is a light visible, there is no detectable sound source that could produce them. Neither is there any evidence of a medium through which the sound could propagate, given that they are demonstrably many light years away. Producing those stars night after night, century after century, millennium after millennium in (to all intents and purposes) the same place just isn't possible.

The sound is only facilitating the expansion and collapse of the bubble, which in turn creates the Hawking Radiation effects described by Eberlein in their paper I provided above. A detectable sound would not be necessary therefore to be creating this star light effect, instead it could be responses to black hole dynamics in our galaxy. She also noted that the spectral density of Sonoluminescence has the same frequency dependence as blackbody radiation.