Question

When you whisper, you produce a 10-dB sound.

a. When you speak quietly, your voice sounds twice as loud as a whisper. How many decibels is this?
b. When you speak normally, your voice sounds 4 times as loud as a whisper. How many decibels is this?
c. When you yell, your voice sounds 8 times as loud as a whisper. How many decibels is this?

Answer 1

Whispering produces a 10-dB sound. Speaking quietly, normally, and yelling produce sounds that are 20 dB, 40 dB, and 80 dB louder than a whisper, respectively.

Step-by-step explanation:

a. When you speak quietly, your voice sounds twice as loud as a whisper. To find how many decibels this is, you can use the fact that each factor of 10 in intensity corresponds to 10 dB. Since speaking quietly is twice as intense as whispering, it would be considered 10 dB louder. So, speaking quietly would produce a 20-dB sound.

b. When you speak normally, your voice sounds 4 times as loud as a whisper. Using the same reasoning as before, speaking normally would produce a sound that is 40 dB louder than a whisper.

c. When you yell, your voice sounds 8 times as loud as a whisper. This means that yelling would produce a sound that is 80 dB louder than a whisper.

Answer 2

All you would do is for a, 10 times 2 is 20 so it would be 20-dB
For b, 10 times 4 is 40 so it would be 40-dB
For c, 10 times 8 is 80 so it would be 80-dB