alphamale said:When a tree falls in the woods, and there's nobody there, does it make a sound?
This is often posed as a philosophical question, but it is really a scientific question, and there's an answer - what is it?
star2589 said:yes. the compression wave happens whether there is someone to perceive it or not.
alphamale said:When a tree falls in the woods, and there's nobody there, does it make a sound?
This is often posed as a philosophical question, but it is really a scientific question, and there's an answer - what is it?
RecoveringPunk said:I suppose that depends on your definition of sound. Is sound the actual waves that are all around us, or is sound the perception of these waves? I'd say the answer is obvious if you define sound.
alphamale said:When a tree falls in the woods, and there's nobody there, does it make a sound?
This is often posed as a philosophical question, but it is really a scientific question, and there's an answer - what is it?
Sound - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave. Humans perceive sound by the sense of hearing.
By sound, we commonly mean the vibrations that travel through air and can be heard by humans. However, scientists and engineers use a wider definition of sound that includes low and high frequency vibrations in air that cannot be heard, and vibrations that travel through all forms of matter, gases, liquids and solids. The matter that supports the sound is called the medium. Sound propagates as waves of alternating pressure, causing local regions of compression and rarefaction. Particles in the medium are displaced by the wave and oscillate.
As a wave, sound is characterized by the properties of waves including frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude and velocity or speed.
Kandahar said:This really isn't philosophy OR science. It's just a question of semantics, and the answer depends entirely on how one defines sound.
star2589 said:sound has nothing to do with human perception, it is a physics term.
our perception of sound is "hearing" or "audation". it's analogous with seeing and vision.
so, there would be sound, but not hearing or audation.
alphamale said:Calling compression waves "sound" would be like calling floating particles "smell". Sound has nothing to do with physics, it's a colloquial biological term.
alphamale said:For those who use words with precision, it's a scientific question.
star2589 said:sources? mine contradict that.
alphamale said:It's obvious without "sources": compression waves plus the human interpretation of them equals sound. I say again - would you call micron-sized airborne particles smell? If you discovered through astronomical spectroscopy methane in a comet's tale - would you say there's "smell" there? No, because "smell" is the interaction of the particles with the human olfactory system/brain. Likewise with compression waves and sound. Get it yet?
star2589 said:"sound" is two things. it is both a physics term to describe compression waves, as I have cited, and it is the word we use to describe what we hear.
alphamale said:People calling compression waves "sound waves", including unfortunately some sloppy science writers, are erring.
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