Blue whales are loud

From what i've read blue whales can produce sounds as loud as 188DB at very low frequencies, which is, insane. I've seen guys in those big stereo sound pressure level competitions, and anything near 170 blows windshields and doors off (literally), it would probly seriously injure or kill you if you were inside the car. I think an actual explosion is like 175.

Now, from what I understand decibels don't work like, 2+2=4. It's something like this...

Perception of Loudness (20dB = 4x)

Interestingly, our perception of loudness is not the same as sound pressure level. Although the actual formulae
is somewhat complex, as a rough rule of thumb, an increase of 10db SPL is perceived to be approximately twice as loud.

* Thus a 20 Db gain would seem to be about 4 times as loud.
* And a 40 Db gain would seem to be about 16 times as loud.

Ok, so that would mean that 188 is fucking insane, wouldn't this kill the whale?! My question is though, if you swam near the whale could it kill a person? What about if the whale swam near a boat, could it damage the boat and equipment? All I can find is how loud the creature is, I can't find anything about what sort of damage it's capable of doing if any.

I think maybe since it's in the water the sound waves travel differently, but what if you took it out of the water? Could it still make the sounds????

I thought it was interesting anyhow, discuss.

That's incredible.

I think the water really affects it in some way. But I know nothing about it. Cool though.

There was something about this on QI with Stephen Fry not long ago.

I'm damn positive that it's got ALOT to do with the water and the frequency.

I highly doubt it could cause damage though, otherwise there would be ships and boats disappearing all the time.

I think, although im not sure, that only other wales can hear it at long distence? Not sure about that one.

Very interesting though - really, it's quite amazing. So many things in this world are. Like how a moron can run England. [Oh, he cant! Nevermind!]