Ok. I can just about buy the idea that you can use soundwaves to cool things down, and that you might be able to assemble a fridge that operated by those principles. I can almost buy the idea that two researchers are using “enormously loud sounds to keep their chiller cabinet cool”. And I’m grudgingly prepared to accept that one might be able to convince people that, “the sounds pumped through the Penn State fridge reach 173 dB, tens of thousands of times more intense than any rock concert”. But you have to start laughing when you read that a fully functioning acoustic fridge has been launched into space. And you’re going to look stunned and giggly when you’re told that “sounds of 165 dB would cause a person’s hair to catch fire from the frictional heating caused by air undergoing such intense compression and expansion”! [BBC News | Thermoacoustic Research at Penn State University]
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