MetaFilter posts tagged with sound and science

What language is music?

univac — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:52:25 -0800

Western musical intervals are derived from speech tendencies, according to Duke scientists. Specifically, "most of the 12 chromatic scale intervals correspond to peaks of relative power in the normalized spectrum of human vocalizations." A somewhat more layperson-friendly summary of the study is here. Some think that language and musicality evolved in tandem (see the singing Neanderthals), and Mendelssohn thought that the communicative ability of music is even more precise than that of language (as related by Oliver Sacks, at 9:05 - .mp3 link).

I have no idea what perceptual insight is, but this is pretty interesting

TheDonF — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:29:34 -0800

An Introduction to Sine-Wave Speech Play the first sound and you'll probably hear nothing but squeaks and bleeps. Play the second one and then go back to the first. Cool!

See For Yourself - Optical Illusions

nthdegx — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:32:33 -0800

See For Yourself - Purves Lab's optical illusions web page with empirical explanations of familiar and unfamiliar illusions.

Stainless Steel Ondine

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:18:18 -0800

Steve Mann's hydraulophone with sculpture gallery and performance video snippets: [1] [2] [3]

Ear Hair Cell Rocks Around the Clock

buriednexttoyou — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:08:53 -0800

Ear Hair Cell Rocks Around the Clock

The sounds of science

numlok — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:07:38 -0800

The Sound of a Distant Rumble: Using monitoring devices originally intended to pick up the sound of nuke launches, researchers track the underwater noise generated by the December 26 (tsunami) earthquake. Eerie audio file of the slowly-building roar is included on the page. (More info here as well)

Through the Looking Chords

Gyan — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:19:11 -0800

Dr Hugo's Museum of the Mind - Synaesthesia

Talk about Johnny One-Note

GreyWingnut — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 08:20:49 -0800

In space, you can hear a black hole sing (WaPo link). Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, astrophysicists have detected a supermassive black hole in the Perseus Cluster which has been "playing" a B-flat for 3 billion years.

Fascinating as this seemingly counterintuitive discovery (sound carrying through space) is, the real significance lies in that these "sound waves" may explain why the superhot gases in such regions aren't cooling down and forming more stars.

Focusing Sound

costas — Tue, 20 May 2003 10:31:54 -0800

Start-up demonstrates sound focusing technology. Basically, they can project a sound to a specific point/person from up to 100m away. Minority Report is coming closer to reality by the day...

Postroad — Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:01:55 -0800

A Stunning finding Perhaps some rock groups do this too.