50 Cent's music could probably douse a fire.
OWNED.
Basically, fire needs oxygen to burn. Since sound waves are also pressure waves, it agitates the air and it separates the oxygen in the fire from the fuel, GMU student Viet Tran explained to the Washington Post.
They used a frequency generator that was connected to an amplifier to make the waves.
The fire started to extinguish at a range of 30 to 60 hertz. "Rappers like 50 Cent could probably douse a fire," Tran joked to the university's research office.
In a 2004 study published in the The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, University of West Georgia students noticed that the fire went out when the song hit a low note. At the time, nobody was really sure why this occurred.
Science Writer
Contact Natasha Umer at natasha.umer@buzzfeed.com.
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