Abstract: Gas bubbles in water act as oscillators with a natural frequency inversely proportional to their radius and a quality factor determined by thermal, radiation, and viscous losses. Newly-formed gas bubbles are excited into breathing mode oscillations immediately after creation, causing them to radiate a pulse of sound. Although the linear dynamics of spherical gas bubbles are well-understood, the mechanism driving the sound production has not been unambiguously identified. Using bubbles released from a nozzle as a model system, it can be shown that sound production is consistant with the rapid change in volume associated with the collapse of an air neck formed immediately after bubble pinch-off. The model is able to adequately describe the production of sound by bubbles released from a nozzle, and can also explain some of the acoustic properties of bubbles fragmenting in fluid turbulence. Laboratory experiments and model calculations of the mechanism are presented. [Work supported by ONR and NSF].