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By long, I mean something like (say) 2 km of detcord. Or perhaps multiple close spaced charges in a line over that distance, simultaneously detonated. Close up a single piece of explosive produces a sharp crack. Further away high frequencies are suppressed and it's more of a boom. However, given that the sound from a couple of km of detcord would be arriving for some 6 seconds, what would it sound like from one end? This must have been done by someone, somewhere.

  • "How would it sound like?" is not really a physical question. What do you want, a spectrum of the expected sound? Then you'd need to specify the sound of the explosive first, and probably run a simulation to see what the superposition of all the explosion sounds sound like at a particular point at a particular time. This is far too broad. – ACuriousMind Feb 03 '15 at 12:33
  • Not so. Do you expect a subsonic boom? A very long drawn out rumble? A crack lasting 6 seconds? A crack slowly subsiding into a low frequency boom? If you want a more precise question - what would the spectrum look like over that 6 seconds? –  Feb 03 '15 at 12:50
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    You might enjoy this question, especially Emilio Pisanti's simulated sound in his answer. This is about modulation of sound through dispersion over distance. – Selene Routley Feb 03 '15 at 12:54
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    Probably quite a bit like a roll of thunder, which is essentially the same thing. – N. Virgo Feb 03 '15 at 12:58
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    Depends on whether the explosion is running from near to far, and on what the speed of propagation is. If, eg, the speed of propagation was very nearly equal to the speed of sound, and the cord was lit from the far end, it would be one loud bang. – Hot Licks Feb 03 '15 at 13:37
  • @Nathaniel: Roight! – Georg Feb 03 '15 at 14:56

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