How the Natural Sound Effect of Acoustic Dispersion Is Used for the Iconic Blaster Sound in Star Wars

The NPR series Skunk Bear explained how the same acoustic dispersion that’s found in nature is the same effect that’s used for the familiar blaster sounds found in Star Wars films.

…acoustic dispersion. A single sound – like ice getting hit by a rock -is made up of vibrations of lots of different frequencies, There’s high frequencies And low frequencies And everything in between After the rock hits, those vibrations move outward through the ice But the higher frequency vibrations go faster than the lower frequency ones The more ice they travel through, the more spread out they get The high notes reach your ears first and then the low notes. Sound … familiar?