You are standing in the middle of a large room listening to a cacaphony of sound

Question

You are standing in the middle of a large room listening to a cacaphony of sounds. Rank the intensity of the sounds from each source (1=loudest, 2= next loudest, ...) Consider all objects to be right next to you. If two values are within 0.1 dB from each other, consider them to be the same.
1 2 3 4 5  An object emitting a sound with an intensity level of 110 dB.
1 2 3 4 5  Two buzzers each producing a sound with intensity level of 40 dB.
1 2 3 4 5  An object emitting a sound with an intensity of 1.0×10-5 W/m2.
1 2 3 4 5  An object emitting a sound with an intensity level of 50 dB.
1 2 3 4 5  100 buzzers each producing a sound with intensity level of 20 dB

Explanation / Answer

We need to convert 1.0 x10-5 W/m2. into dB
The formula for sound intensity in decibel is given as 10 log(I/Io)
Io is the threshold of hearing, Io = 10-12 W/m2.
Intensity = 10 log[(10-5)/(10-12)]
= 10 log(107)
= 70 dB

If we rank them based on the intensity,
it will be 1, 3, 4, 2, 5

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