85 pointsby rguiscard3 hours ago14 comments
  • nilslindemann2 hours ago
    Well, a search for "youtube acoustic fire extinguisher" indicates it has already been invented a few times by people all over the world. The most interesting video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvnCQg4w4o8
    • 7 minutes ago
      undefined
    • fsckboy34 minutes ago
      I'll bet that high school girl's science was better than what's in that youtube (it doesn't set a very high bar)
    • biffert8an hour ago
      [flagged]
  • frickinLasers2 hours ago
    I wonder if she got the idea from https://www.sonicfiretech.com/
  • bentt2 hours ago
    very cool! Can we get a link to a not terrible website with real information?
    • cwillu2 hours ago
      Bold of you to assume there is real information behind this.
    • nomilkan hour ago
      > Performing security verification

      > Verify you are human

      Does anyone else command + w on first sight of a cloudflare screen?

      • gonightan hour ago
        I'll tolerate that but that new QR recaptcha that wants a selfie is 'hell fucking no' from me 100% of the time.
        • CamperBob2an hour ago
          I sure hope humans are in the loop at those companies, reviewing pics that aren't recognized as faces. If I ever see one of those captchas, they'll get to see some things that no human has ever, or should ever, see.
      • CamperBob2an hour ago
        Nah, I just have my clanker deal with it. It's better at those stupid puzzles than I am.
        • mitxela24 minutes ago
          Cloudflare doesn't do puzzles. It either says you're a bot or you're not a bot.
  • Animatsan hour ago
    This seems to be a known technology but hasn't made it as a product.[1] It might have potential for very specific types of extinguishing, such as grills and grain silos, where the distance from extinguisher to trouble spot is fixed.

    [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/8/4/129

  • kevin_nisbetan hour ago
    Not exactly acoustic but reminds me of a high school science project we had one year, something along the lines of put out a candle with a contraption. My partner and I rigged up a balloon to be popped by the candle, and the balloon pop blows out the candle. Probably not an original idea, but I don't think any other group in the class tried a similar approach. Worked like a charm.
  • spottedmarleyan hour ago
    Oooh.. from the title I thought this was about an extinguisher for when your guitar catches fire. Makes more sense now
  • rootedboxan hour ago
    At other frequencies, sound can actually intensify flames, depending on the surrounding environment. Standing waves and the frequency of the sound (FM) are likely factors in this phenomenon. However, it’s not advisable to use sound as a method for extinguishing fires.
    • dosiskingan hour ago
      Instead of FM, maybe they can just use an AY-3-8910?
  • ssl-32 hours ago
    > Ángela Karime Venegas Hernández is 16 years old and has an idea no one else had.

    ...meanwhile, some folks at George Mason University were doing this back in 2015[1]:

    > The fire extinguisher uses low-frequency sound waves to douse a blaze. Engineering seniors Viet Tran and Seth Robertson now hold a preliminary patent application for their potentially revolutionizing device.

    []: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10569115B2/en

    [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPVQMZ4ikvM

  • copper-float37 minutes ago
    Why does it matter that she's Mexican?
    • ajkjk34 minutes ago
      Stereotyped as less of a STEM country, probably accurately, so it seems newsworthy plus gives people hope and optimism to hear about cool inventions from there.
    • lern_too_spel25 minutes ago
      Because it's a Chilean blog about feel good stories in Latin America, just like it says on the tin.
    • fkgkglgkkh28 minutes ago
      because of people like you who cannot read an innocuous detail without turning hysterical. if it doesnt matter why did you open your mouth?
    • yesitcan23 minutes ago
      Because they’re known to have lower IQ making this ingenuity more remarkable.
      • jamwil6 minutes ago
        Found the Argentinian.
      • pacomerh16 minutes ago
        oh boy, you're proving the opposite with this "clever" comment.
        • yesitcan2 minutes ago
          “The average IQ in the United States is typically standardized around 100, while unofficial global internet datasets estimate Mexico's average IQ between 86 and 90”
  • bawolffan hour ago
    out of curiosity, would something like this hurt a human? I assume the sound waves must be pretty powerful to put out a fire.
    • _carbyau_a minute ago
      Seems like a standing wave thing to halt airflow rather than "overpower with Bill & Ted's Awesomeness!".

      Depending on what they have going, it might be loud, might not.

  • an hour ago
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  • cactusplant73742 hours ago
    > Ángela Karime Venegas Hernández is 16 years old and has an idea no one else had.

    Hate to be a downer, but this has been done before.

    https://acoustics.org/pressroom/httpdocs/150th/Plaks.html

  • mulanrooan hour ago
    The reason this keeps getting reinvented is that the physics only half works. Sound disrupts the flame's boundary layer and separates it from the fuel, but it removes almost no heat. The fuel stays above its ignition temperature, so anything hot nearby relights it the second the speaker stops. DARPA demoed this in 2012 and it stalled there. Impressive on a small liquid fuel fire in a lab, very hard to scale to anything you'd actually want to put out.
    • rkagerer25 minutes ago
      I wonder if one could use a thermal camera (or some other, high speed sensor) and some kind of feedback loop to squelch it and keep it disrupted until it cools. Or conversely, manipulate the flame for more complete combustion (in industrial processes).

      But granted, I have trouble seeing this work on a large scale without much more sophisticated sonic wave tech.

  • cwillu2 hours ago
    Pangram reports 100% AI; it may be an artifact of translation, but...