Boombox lung
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
High amplitude sounds can cause pneumothorax, a build-up of air in the pleural space that leads to the detachment of a lung from the chest wall, commonly called a ‘collapsed lung’. Low frequency, high intensity sound can be damaging to the lungs, particularly if the sound matches the resonant frequency of the functional tissue, 128 Hz.
A report describes four case studies of pneumothorax induced by loud sounds, including a 19 year-old male smoker who had installed a 1000 W bass speaker in his car. Whilst listening to music, the young man experienced a sudden pain in the right side of his chest and became breathless due to the reoccurrence of pneumothorax.
References
M. Noppen, S. Verbanck, J. Harvey, R. Van Herreweghe, M. Meysman, W. Vincken, & M. Paiva, Music: a new cause of primary spontaneous pneumothorax. Thorax, vol. 59, no. 8, 2004, pp. 722-724, p.723.
