How loud can sound really get? The human ear can safely hear up to around 120 decibels. Beyond that, it starts to hurt. At 150 decibels, eardrums can rupture. But history has witnessed sounds far ...

A volcano in Indonesia once made a sound so extreme that people nearly 3,000 miles away thought they were hearing heavy cannon fire. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau, often written as Krakatoa, is still ...