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Sea Change
Comments about Life's Social Aspects

Two unrecruited explorers stare at the sky and -- having nothing better to do -- decide that one of them is a philosopher and the other, a psychologist.

"It's all based on the speed of sound, you see. There's this distance between your ears of about a half a foot, and the sound reaches one ear prior to the other. Your brain measures the difference in time. The difference in time tells you which ear is closest to the sound. Then, you turn your head to see where the sound is coming from." "I understand you, even with the dangling participle."

"When the lightning flashes, start counting the seconds until you hear the thunder . . . like Mississippi1Mississippi2Mississippi3Mississippi4Mississippi5 -- . When you get to five, then the lightening was a mile away. If you don't get to one, lie down in a ditch."

"The plane was going mach 3, that's three times the speed of sound, so you couldn't hear it until after it had been gone for a few minutes because the sound hadn't caught up to it."

"The bats send out high-pitched sounds, and when they receive the echoes, they can tell where they're going."

"If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?"

"Whales and porpoises make ultrasonic sounds under water to communicate with each other."

"Dogs can hear much higher frequencies than humans can."

"He was hearing strange sounds in his head. It turns out the filling in one of his molars was picking up a radio station."

"It's all based on the force, or pressure of sound waves, you see. Your ears point in opposite directions, and the sound waves hit one more directly, therefore with more pressure, than the other. The difference in pressure tells you which ear is closest to the sound. Then, you turn your head to see where the sound is coming from." "I understand you, even with the dangling participle."

"We have radio listening stations around the world which are trying to pick up the sounds of people on other planets in other solar systems."

"When a train goes by, the sound waves go from being compressed to being stretched out, which makes the sound lower."

"The orchestra has instruments from the contrabassoon and double bass to the piccolo. The instruments' sounds span almost the entire human listening range from 40 hertz to 10,000 hertz."

"When you see the ball hit from the outfield, the sound of the crack of the bat reaches you a half second later."

"A runner who watches the puff of smoke from the starter's gun will get a jump on the runner who listens for the sound of the shot."

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

"I heard the waterfall ringing in my ears long after my view of it had been obscured."

"The music drummed in my head over and over all day long until I turned on the radio to drive it out."

"Women can hear higher frequency sounds than men. That's so they can better hear and therefore take care of their children." "I thought it was because the bones in their middle ears were smaller."

"I whistled the tune I made up this morning and now I can't for the life of me remember it."

"When you double the frequency of a note, it makes a sound one octave higher."

"Sound travels much faster and more efficiently in water, than air, faster in glass than in water, and faster yet through metal . . . and therefore further in those mediums, as well."

Sites of Related Interest

Internet Phone
Franklin Institute Science Museum
The Wave: Sounds Good

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