It's become quite an expectation to see people pick apart elements of science fiction films to outline whether some of their ideas have any grounds for reality. Now precisely this has happened to Dune: Part Two as physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has spoken on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to state that the thumpers used to attract sandworms fundamentally wouldn't work.
Speaking on the show to promote his new book, To Infinity and Beyond, a book that looks at various movies and points out scientific flaws related to them, he mentioned how the thumpers would not work in the world of Dune.
As noticed by Feature First, Tyson stated, "You can't thump sand, if you do this to sand [slams fist] nobody else is gonna hear it... they have the worm going straight fast, no that's not how physics work they gotta curl."
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However, this had led to an acoustician piping up and voicing their thoughts on the matter. Periodic Audio, known as a manufacturer of American Hi-Fi products, has spoken on X to add, "Acoustician here. He's wrong. Speed of sound in sand is about 1626 m/s, about 5x that on air. Sound travels through sand perfectly well."
This claim has even been backed up with a link to a research paper published by the National Library of Medicine, begging the question who is really right?
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