[Phys-L] Re: Sound

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

Talk about serendipity! I first read "mortars" as "motors". Yesterday
at 4:30 I complained about a generator that a movie production
company had set up about thirty meters from my bedroom window that
morning. It was purring at the time, but I knew that by the time they
started shooting last night it would be very annoying, and I have
been having trouble sleeping. For some reason they didn't shoot last
night. Many films have used this location, so I keep on the lookout
for such things.

The effect is real. When all else is quiet, the loudest sound can be
annoying. If my refrigerator (which has a fan inside it) is not
running, my quartz crystal wall clock is loud, though one can't hear
the clock at all when anything else is happening. Audition, like
vision, is a logarithmically sensitive perception. Like vision, which
has an iris to moderate the upper decades and a periphery to extend
the lower decades, audition also adjusts. I think the adjustment is
largely in the central nervous system (as is somewhat less the case
with vision), however, in the wsp (wet signal processor). I have
never heard of a mechanical analog of the iris in the ear, but it is
something that, perhaps, anatomists should look for, given the clever
things that have evolved over vast past. Perhaps, if it does not yet
exist, it will appear among boom car fans, though their more
sensitive congeners may reduce reproductive fitness by assassination.

My best wishes for your son's well being, Jim.

Leigh

(I decided to post this, too.)

Jim Green asks:

> My son, who is sometimes bored out of his skull in Iraq, asks the
> following:
>
> At 10:22 15 07 2005 , the following was  received:
>
> > Mortars sound louder at night here. Why?
>
> Comments???
>
> Jim
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