Is there a limit to the loudest sound?

[Harley]

Just got thinkinking about noise.Is there a limit to how loud the loudest noise is? Is an atomic explosion the loudest noise

[thikasabrik]

I don't know about an atomic explosion being the loudest noise. Come round to my house when the five teenagers who live next door to me have their five separate stereos & mixing machines playing at the same time.

[Loosehead]

I beleive the Plutonium Rock band "Disaster Area" are the loudest noise in the universe. Regular concert goers deem that the best sound balance is can be found by listening 40 miles away in concrete bunkers.

[morkris]

Krakatoa Loudest bang in recorded history

[brachiopod]

Loosehead, you are Hotblack Desiato in disguise and I claim my �5.

[Loosehead]

Well I'm his PA, He's spending a year 

dead for tax reasons

[Bob A Job]

the problem with sound is, its created on an exponential curve.

For something to be twice as loud you have to use ten times the energy.

As for the loudest noise ever - That would have been the largest usage of energy....

The Big 'Bang'

[Clanad]

I think this will lead to an unresolved discussion, however Bob A Job, intuition leads one to believe the 'Big Bang' would have been silent, for all practical purposes.  Firstly, the initial stages seem to have occurred at faster than the speed of light, and nothing existed except within the expansion. No one could have observed it from outside the event, since "outside" didn't (and still doesn't) exist. Secondly, the expansion of matter and space would indicate nothing through which propagation of the sound waves could proceed.  Obviously, no human was there, so it's theory only...

[Bob A Job]

Good point Clanad, but going on that theory no sound can travel in space (a vacuum)so a cough (ahem) is louder than a super-nova.... 

[Clanad]

I would think so, Bob a Job... in fact, a whisper would be louder than a super nova...