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.

An object emitting a sound with an intensity of 1.0×10-9 W/m2.
An object emitting a sound with an intensity level of 20dB.
Two buzzers each producing a sound with intensity level of 40 dB.
An object emitting a sound with an intensity level of 50 dB.

Explanation / Answer

First we calculate all the intensities in dB.
(1) Object with intensity 1*10-9 W/m2
I(dB) = 10Log10(I/Io) = 10 Log10 (10-9 /10-12) = 30 dB
(2) object emitting a sound of 20 DB.
(3) two buzzer are producing sound with intensity 40 dB .
N times louder = 10Log10(n) = 10
Hence intensity will be = 40 + 10Log10(2) = 43 dB
(4) An object emitting of 50 dB.
hence the correct order is
4 , 3 , 1, 2

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