Taylor Swift fans really know how to “shake it off” and shake the ground.
Scientists studied how the stadium and ground shook during Swift’s Ellas tour concert last August. They discovered it Dancing fans generate vibrations The ground echoed with seismic waves that matched the beat of each song.
The team shared its findings on March 13th. Seismology Research Letter.
“I really enjoy being able to use seismic tools to understand things like music, concerts, and events that bring people together,” says Eva Golos. She is a seismologist and studies earthquakes, but she was not involved in the new research. Golos works at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
stadium vibration
This is not the first time seismologists have measured vibrations in a stadium. In 2011, Seattle Seahawks fans rocked their home stadium with cheers after scoring a spectacular touchdown. And last July, Abalone rattled the ground. At a concert in Seattle.
Those shakings are different from earthquakes. Earthquakes usually last only a few seconds. In contrast, “concert shaking” can last several minutes.
The ground moves in various ways during earthquakes and concerts. Earthquakes occur when giant slabs of the Earth’s crust, called tectonic plates, shift. Their movements permanently change the ground. Shaking caused by crowds usually does not deform the Earth.
Concert tremors are “like splashing in a puddle,” explains Gabriel Tep. She is a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She said, “You can see the ripples, but once the splatter is done, it goes back to normal.”
Seismologists use similar equipment to detect earthquakes and concert shaking. In the new study, Tep’s team installed motion sensors in and around SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. They did this just before Swift’s first Elas tour performance. These devices measured shaking from the stadium during Swift’s concert on August 5, 2023. About 70,000 people attended the show.
For many of the songs played that night, the frequency of the vibrations matched the beat of the song. Using the frequency and duration of the vibrations, researchers were able to identify nearly every song Swift performed.
The stadium shook the most during Swift’s performance of “Shake It Off.” During this song, the stand released an energy roughly equivalent to a magnitude 0.85 earthquake. It is not as powerful as humans feel, but it releases just as much energy. Blow up several ounces of TNT.
That energy was released throughout the song. Earthquakes (or TNT explosions) typically release all their energy within a few seconds.
The difference between an earthquake and the shaking of a concert is “like the difference between a fireworks explosion and the roar of a jet engine,” Tep says. “They may release the same amount of energy. But the explosion is happening very quickly. It’s all at once. Whereas in a jet engine, [energy] over a longer period of time. So it’s not as noisy during peak hours, but it lasts much longer.”
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Discovery of the epicenter
Tep and her colleagues wanted to determine the cause of Swift’s concert tremors. Was it the fans, the sound system, or the instruments that made the jump?
To find out, the researchers placed a portable speaker next to a motion sensor in the lab and turned the speaker’s volume up to maximum. Tep then connected his bass guitar and played a simple beat on the speakers. They also played Swift’s “Love Story” at maximum volume on the speakers. Tep even jumped up and down near the sensor as he grooved to the final chorus.
The sensors picked up vibrations consistent with concert vibrations only when Tep was bouncing around. This suggests that the vibrations measured on August 5th were also caused by fans jumping and dancing.
This discovery tells scientists more than just concert tremors. Understanding how stadiums shake in response to large crowds could help make buildings safer, Golos said. Using seismic data like this, she says, “we can also gain a deeper understanding of human behavior.” “I think there’s a lot of interesting information hidden there.”
Source: www.snexplores.org
