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Re: dispersion at Chichenitza

At 14:44 1/11/00 -0800, Andy Piacsek wrote:

Check out the article "Singing Stairs" in the January 16, 1999, issue
of Science News. It summarizes a paper given by David Lubman at the
October, 1998, Acoustical Society of America meeting. (I was at that
meeting, but unfortunately missed this talk).

Lubman notes that the *decreasing frequency* of the chirp is reminiscent
of the call of the quetzal bird; thus his theory that the Mayan's
constructed the stairs deliberately to mimic the bird's call.

This theory is somewhat in dispute.

Andy
Dr. Andrew A. Piacsek


Lubman offers a description at the following web address.

http://www.ocasa.org/MayanPyramid2.htm

It includes a descending sonogram chirp in several harmonics.
It may be my imagination, but the onset time of the highest
descending chirp looks slightly delayed cf the lower registers.



brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK