Loud fireworks often traumatise dogs, cats, hedgehogs etc, and also humans of a nervous disposition. Silent fireworks are WKTE, as are "silent" discos, which however achieve their unobtrusiveness via headphones.
I suggest firework displays do the same. Each firework is accompanied by a coordinated bang, whizz or whistle transmitted into spectators' wireless headphones, which double as earmuffs when the firework display is happening in cold weather. The headphones can also be turned off.
Result: happier hedgehogs etc.-- nineteenthly, Nov 04 2018 Auto-dimming goggles https://www.amazon....tion/dp/B00V7F2RT4/ [Dub, Nov 06 2018] Snopes on silent fireworks https://www.snopes....k/silent-fireworks/Quoted in my anno [notexactly, Nov 07 2018] Headphones for pets would be good. Dogs and cats are traumatised by loud fireworks.-- xenzag, Nov 04 2018 Not sure how you'd get headphones on every mammal and bird within earshot, or in fact what earshot would even be for some of them. I wonder if it messes up bat echolocation.-- nineteenthly, Nov 04 2018 What [IT] said.
// cats are traumatised by loud fireworks. //
Amongst other things ... but yes, fireworks are very useful in that respect.-- 8th of 7, Nov 04 2018 Hmmm, with one of them google glass cardboard + ear phones, if your local fireworks were a bit boring you could switch channels to a more exciting display.
Admittedly you might be going "oooh" and "aaah" at the wrong time, but that's freedom of wossername.-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 04 2018 But half the fun of firework displays is that you can see and hear them for miles around, for free and at zero cost. You'd have to have a major campaign of headphone distribution ahead of the actual display.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 05 2018 +1 but sycho doesn't seem bothered.-- po, Nov 05 2018 Oh good. Unless that's due to deafness.-- nineteenthly, Nov 05 2018 // you can see and hear them for miles around //
Oh, just a "garden" display, then ?
If it doesn't register on every seismograph in the hemisphere, it's not worth having. We favour the "shock and awe" style of display, the sort where the survivors (if any) cannot deny they were impressed (i.e. crushed to the ground by the shock waves).-- 8th of 7, Nov 05 2018 Hmm, for next year how difficult would it be to divert a minor comet?-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 05 2018 Trivially easy.
We prefer the idea of a Planetary Selection Box ... comets both small and large, various asteroids, a bag of mixed meteorites, some solar flares, a blurred sheet of badly-photocopied instructions, a pair of pound-shop safety goggles, and a sort of giant joss-stick with which you're supposed to set everything off.
If you order now, we can deliver for Xmas or New Year.-- 8th of 7, Nov 05 2018 They could only work when they need to. Add goggles a mic SPL detector and a camera. Detect a flash (dim goggles to avoid flash shock), and estimate the explosion distance by measuring the time-gap, before muting audio, so next time the mute can start 200ms earlier...-- Dub, Nov 06 2018 From Snopes [link]:
// Many readers seemed to come away with the impression that these “silent fireworks” would appear just as big and bright as traditional fireworks, but without the loud explosive booms normally associated with them. That’s not the case, however […] these “silent firework” displays (which are probably better described as “reduced noise” displays) don’t typically include the big aerial explosions found in traditional fireworks shows. Rather than employing some new form of pyrotechnology that dampens the noise of traditional fireworks, such “quiet” displays mostly make selective use of existing non-loud forms of fireworks //
Therefore, this idea proposes to use existing non-loud (and less visually impressive) firework types, and artificially add sounds that they were never supposed to have in the first place. (And headphones would never give you that thump in your chest.)
[-]-- notexactly, Nov 07 2018 The logical extension of this idea is just to turn down the heating in your house, to simulate being outdoors, and then watch videos of firework displays on YouTube, with the volume set at whatever level you like.-- hippo, Nov 07 2018 Pah. Why bother at all ?
// headphones would never give you that thump in your chest // or on the soles of your feet (which you feel first, because shock waves travel faster in denser media), nor will speakers, because they can never reproduce the extremely fast rise time and very high peak value of an explosive pressure pulse. They can't even match the modest performance of propellants, or even deflagrants like black powder - which even if tightly confined is more of a bump than a bang.-- 8th of 7, Nov 07 2018 That "thump in your chest" feeling you experience when a massive firework explodes can easily be simulated by someone next to you wielding a cricket bat.-- hippo, Nov 07 2018 That's like saying that a rollercoaster gives the same sensations as being in an aerobatic aircraft, i.e, "doesn't even come close".
"Blast surfing" - being much closer than is safe or advisable to pyrotechnics and explosives during their firing sequence - is a totally immersive experience. It's not just the thump on the chest, there's the flashes of light, and the taste and smell of combustion products; the patter of falling debris, the shockwaves made visible when humidity is high ... enthralling.-- 8th of 7, Nov 07 2018 Not dead, just resting ...
Unfortunately, pyrotechnics sufficiently capable to be impressive indoors are also sufficiently capable of converting "indoors" into "outdoors" (if you neglect to open enough windows).
Bulk overpressure's a sadly unforgiving phenomenon; 200 milliBar is quite capable of pushing out a masonry wall, let alone a mere sheet of glass.-- 8th of 7, Nov 07 2018 random, halfbakery