The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World
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16 S. B. Thorne and P. Himelstein, “The Role of Suggestion in the Perception of Satanic Messages in Rock-and-Roll Recordings,” Journal of Psychology 116 (1984): 245–48.
17 I. M. Begg, D. R. Needham, and M. Bookbinder, “Do Backward Messages Unconsciously Affect Listeners? No,” Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 47 (1993): 1–14.
18 The Simpsons [television program], season 19, episode 8, first broadcast November 25, 2007, http://movie.subtitlr.com/subtitle/show/190301, accessed November 23, 2011.
19 Radau, Wonders of Acoustics, 85–86.
20 P. Doyle, Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music, 1900–1960 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005), 208.
21 C. Wiley, The Road Less Travelled: 1,000 Amazing Places off the Tourist Trail (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2011), 121.
22 R. M. Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1994), 220.
23 Luke Jerram, personal communication, October 20, 2011.
24 Whether you find minor scales sad depends on your musical experiences and tastes. If I were from eastern Europe, the sound might not have been so malevolent and spooky.
25 R. Jovanovic, Perfect Sound Forever (Boston: Justin, Charles & Co., 2004), 23.
26 Nick Whitaker, acoustic consultant, personal communication, autumn 2011.
27 B. F. G. Katz, O. Delarozière, and P. Luizard, “A Ceiling Case Study Inspired by an Historical Scale Model,” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics 33 (2011): 314–24.
28 A. Lepage, “Le Tribunal de l’Abbaye,” Le Monde Illustré 19 (1875): 373–76. Translated in Katz, Delarozière, and Luizard, “Ceiling Case Study.”
29 D. Shiga, “Telescope Could Focus Light without a Mirror or Lens,” New Scientist, May 1, 2008, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13820-telescope-could-focus-light-without-a-mirror-or-lens.html?full=true.
30 “Echo Saved Ship from Iceberg,” Day (London), June 22, 1914.
31 H. H. Windsor, “Echo Sailing in Dangerous Waters,” Popular Mechanics 47 (May 1927): 794–97.
32 Ibid.
33 H. H. Windsor, “They Steer by Ear,” Popular Mechanics 76 (December 1941): 34–36, 180.
34 D. Kish, “Echo Vision: The Man Who Sees with Sound,” New Scientist, no. 2703 (April 11, 2009): 31–33.
35 Tor Halmrast, “More Combs,” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics 22, no. 2 (2011): 75–82.
36 J. A. M. Rojas, J. A. Hermosilla, R. S. Montero, and P. L. L. Espí, “Physical Analysis of Several Organic Signals for Human Echolocation: Oral Vacuum Pulses,” Acta Acustica united with Acustica 95 (2009): 325–30.
37 L. D. Rosenblum, See What I’m Saying (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010).
38 A. T. Jones, “The Echoes at Echo Bridge,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 20 (1948): 706–7.
39 M. Twain, “The Canvasser’s Tale,” in The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com, 2008), 90.
40 Hunt (in Origins in Acoustics, p. 96) writes that this is the first verse, but Radau (in Wonders of Acoustics, p. 93) states that it is the first line. I use the latter because Hunt gives a timing of 32 seconds for the eight repeats, which is far too short for eight repeats of the first verse, but believable for eight repeats of one line.
41 M. Crunelle, “Is There an Acoustical Tradition in Western Architecture?” (paper presented at the 12th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, Lisbon, Portugal, July 11–14, 2005).
42 I. Lauterbach, “The Gardens of the Milanese Villeggiatura in the Mid-sixteenth Century,” in The Italian Garden: Art, Design and Culture, ed. J. D. Hunt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 150. This was also noted by Athanasius Kircher; see L. Tronchin, “The ‘Phonurgia Nova’ of Athanasius Kircher: The Marvellous Sound World of 17th Century,” Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 4 (2008): 015002.
43 Crunelle, “Is There an Acoustical Tradition?”
44 Marc Crunelle, personal communication, December 3, 2011.
45 Peter Cusack, personal communication, January 7, 2012.
46 Saxophones are usually made from metal. The sound is dominated by the effect of the bore shape, which is conical, and by the way the reed vibration shapes how the notes begin and end. The shape of the mouthpiece is very important, and Charlie Parker would have used his normal mouthpiece on the plastic sax. I play the straight soprano saxophone, which can sound remarkably like the (wooden) oboe because both are conically bored and both use reeds to create sound.
47 “Whistling Echoes from a Drain Pipe,” New Scientist and Science Journal 51 (July 1, 1971): 6.
48 The explanation is slightly more complex if the hands and ear are not on the center line of the pipe, but the effect is similar; see E. A. Karlow, “Culvert Whistlers: Harmonizing the Wave and Ray Models,” American Journal of Physics 68 (2000): 531–39.
49 Nico Declercq, personal communication, autumn 2011.
50 D. Tidoni, “A Balloon for Linz” [video], http://vimeo.com/28686368, accessed December 21, 2011.
51 “Remarkable Echoes,” in The Family Magazine (Cincinnati, OH: J. A. James, 1841), 107.
5: Going round the Bend
1 W. C. Sabine, Collected Papers on Acoustics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922), 257.
2 C. V. Raman, “On Whispering Galleries,” Bulletin of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science 7 (1922): 159–72.
3 E. Boid, Travels through Sicily and the Lipari Islands, in the Month of December, 1824, by a Naval Officer (London: T. Flint, 1827), 155–56. W. C. Sabine has interesting discussions on the veracity of the story in his collected papers.
4 T. J. Cox, “Comment on article ‘Nico F. Declercq et al.: An Acoustic Diffraction Study of a Specifically Designed Auditorium Having a Corrugated Ceiling: Alvar Aalto’s Lecture Room,’ ” Acta Acustica united with Acustica 97 (2011): 909.
5 N. Arnott, Elements of Physics (London: Printed for Thomas and George Underwood, 1827), xxix–xxx.
6 D. Zimmerman, Britain’s Shield: Radar and the Defeat of the Luftwaffe (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2001), 22; J. Ferris, “Fighter Defence before Fighter Command: The Rise of Strategic Air Defence in Great Britain, 1917–1934,” Journal of Military History 63 (1999): 845–84.
7 “Can Sound Really Travel 200 Miles?” BBC News, December 13, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4521232.stm.
8 “Buncefield Oil Depot Explosion ‘May Have Damaged Environment for Decades,’ Hears Health and Safety Trial,” Daily Mail, April 15, 2010, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266217/Buncefield-oil-depot-explosion-damaged-environment-decades.html.
9 R. A. Metkemeijer, “The Acoustics of the Auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall before and after Redevelopment,” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, 19, no. 3 (2002): 57–66.
10 I first found this exercise described in L. Cremer and H. A. Muller. Principles and Applications of Room Acoustics. Translated by T. J. Schultz (London: Applied Science, 1982).
11 “Tests Explain Mystery of ‘Whispering Galleries,’ ” Popular Science Monthly 129 (October 1936): 21.
12 “Tourists Fill Washington: Nation’s Capital the Mecca of Many Sightseers,” New York Times, April 16, 1894.
13 “A Hall of Statuary: An Interesting Spot at the Great Capitol,” Lewiston Daily Sun, December 9, 1893.
14 Cremer and Muller, Principles and Applications.
15 There is much more on this design method in my academic text on the subject: T. J. Cox and P. D’Antonio, Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers, 2nd ed. (London: Taylor & Francis, 2009).
16 M. Kington, “Millennium Dome 3, St Peter’s Dome 1,” Independent (London), October 23, 2000.
17 W. Hartmann, H. S. Colburn, and G. Kidd, “Mapparium Acoustics” (lay language paper presented at the 151st Acoustical Society of America Meeting, Providence, RI, June 5, 2006), http://www.acoustics.org/press/151st/Hartmann.html, accessed February 2011.
18 J. Sá
nchez-Dehesa, A. Håkansson, F. Cervera, F. Mesegner, B. Manzanares-Martínez, and F. Ramos-Mendieta, “Acoustical Phenomenon in Ancient Totonac’s Monument” (lay language paper presented at the 147th Acoustical Society of America Meeting, New York, May 28, 2004), http://www.acoustics.org/press/147th/sanchez.htm, accessed February 2011.
19 R. Godwin, “On a Mission with London’s Urban Explorers,” London Evening Standard, June 15, 2012; A. Craddock, “Underground Ghost Station Explorers Spook the Security Services,” Guardian (London), February 24, 2012; and B. L. Garrett, “Place Hacking: Explore Everything,” Vimeo, http://vimeo.com/channels/placehacking, accessed December 29, 2012.
20 It is estimated that there was 55–80 million cubic meters (about 70–105 million cubic yards) of rubble in Berlin to dispose of after the war. The mountain buried a Nazi military training school.
21 Cremer and Muller, Principles and Applications.
22 Hartmann, Colburn, and Kidd, “Mapparium Acoustics.”
23 Ibid.
24 Barry Marshall, personal communication, May 13, 2011.
25 M. Crunelle, “Is There an Acoustical Tradition in Western Architecture?” http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/skiathos2001/papers/102.pdf, accessed December 29, 2012.
26 G. F. Angas, A Ramble in Malta and Sicily (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., Cornhill, 1842), 88.
27 T. S. Hughes, Travels in Sicily, Greece & Albania, Volume 1 (London: J. Mawman, 1820), 104–5.
28 A. Bigelow, Travels in Malta and Sicily: With Sketches of Gibraltar, in MDCCCXXVII (Boston: Carter, Hendee and Babcock, 1831), 303.
29 J. Verne, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (London: Fantastica, 2013), 125–6.
30 The Temple of Heaven in Beijing includes an “Echo Wall” that is actually a whispering wall.
31 E. C. Everbach and D. Lubman, “Whispering Arches as Intimate Soundscapes,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 127 (2010): 1933.
32 Lord Rayleigh, Scientific Papers. Volume V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), 171.
33 Raman, “On Whispering Galleries.”
34 S. Hedengren, “Audio Ease Releases Acoustics of Indian Monument Gol Gumbaz, One of the Richest Reverbs in the World,” ProTooler (blog), September 21, 2007, http://www.protoolerblog.com/2007/09/21/audio-ease-releases-acoustics-of-indian-monument-gol-gumbaz-one-of-the-richest-reverbs-in-the-world.
35 Ibid.
36 “The Missouri Capitol: The Exterior of the Jefferson City Structure Was Built Entirely of Missouri Marble,” Through the Ages Magazine 1 (1924): 26–32.
37 A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon, 8th ed. (London: John Murray, 1911).
6: Singing Sands
1 M. L. Hunt and N. M. Vriend, “Booming Sand Dunes,” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 38 (2010): 281–301. There are probably more singing dunes to be found.
2 C. Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com, 2007), 224.
3 L. Giles, “Notes on the District of Tun-Huang,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 46 (1914): 703–28.
4 M. Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: Cosimo, 2007), 66.
5 S. Dagois-Bohy, S. Ngo, S. C. du Pont, and S. Douady, “Laboratory Singing Sand Avalanches,” Ultrasonics 50 (2010): 127–32.
6 Data from “World’s Largest Waterfalls by Average Volume,” World Waterfall Database, http://www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com/largest-waterfalls/volume, accessed December 27, 2012.
7 J. Knelman, “Did He or Didn’t He? The Canadian Accused of Inventing CIA Torture,” Globe and Mail (Canada), November 17, 2007.
8 J. Muir, John Muir: The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books (Seattle, WA: Diadem, 1992), 623.
9 G. R. Watts, R. J. Pheasant, K. V. Horoshenkov, and L. Ragonesi, “Measurement and Subjective Assessment of Water Generated Sounds,” Acta Acustica united with Acustica 95: 1032–39 (2009); L. Galbrun and T. T. Ali, “Perceptual Assessment of Water Sounds for Road Traffic Noise Masking,” in Proceedings of the Acoustics 2012 Nantes Conference, 23–27 April 2012, Nantes, France, 2153–2158.
10 Lee Patterson, personal communication, May 25, 2012.
11 The bubbles have quite a tight range of sizes, from 1 to 3 millimeters (about a twelfth of an inch) in radius, resulting in a narrow range of frequencies, from 1,000 to 3,000 hertz. It’s possible that the bubbles come from a gas produced by insects, but given the fluctuations of the bubble production with light levels that Lee described to me, the source would seem more likely to be photosynthesis from very lively pondweed.
12 L. Rohter, “Far from the Ocean, Surfers Ride Brazil’s Endless Wave,” New York Times, March 22, 2004.
13 For much more on tidal bores, see the excellent book by G. Pretor-Pinney Wavewatcher’s Companion (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), from which some of the facts in this section are taken.
14 Z. Dai and C. Zhou, “The Qiantang Bore,” International Journal of Sediment Research 1 (1987): 21–26.
15 W. U. Moore, “The Bore of the Tsien-Tang-Kiang,” Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 99 (1890): 297–304.
16 H. Chanson, “The Rumble Sound Generated by a Tidal Bore Event in the Baie du Mont Saint Michel,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 125 (2009): 3561–68.
17 Terje Isungset, comment to the audience at a concert at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, England, November 7, 2011.
18 L. R. Taylor, M. G. Prasad, and R. B. Bhat, “Acoustical Characteristics of a Conch Shell Trumpet,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 95 (1994): 2912.
19 P. Wyse, “The Iceman Bloweth,” Guardian (London), December 3, 2008.
20 This reminds me of a terrible hi-fi magazine article I once read claiming that the material of the shelf where a CD player rested significantly changed the sound—wooden shelves producing a warm sound, glass shelves producing a clearer sound!
21 B. L. Giordano and S. McAdams, “Material Identification of Real Impact Sounds: Effects of Size Variation in Steel, Glass, Wood, and Plexiglass Plates,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119 (2006): 1171–81.
22 O. Chernets and J. R. Fricke, “Estimation of Arctic Ice Thickness from Ambient Noise,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 96 (1994): 3232–33.
23 Peter Cusack, personal communication, January 7, 2012.
24 Chris Watson, personal communication, November 15, 2011.
25 R. van der Spuy, AdvancED Game Design with Flash (New York: friendsofED, 2010), 462.
26 G. Lundmark, “Skating on Thin Ice—and the Acoustics of Infinite Plates” (paper presented at Internoise 2001, the 2001 International Congress and Exhibition on Noise Control Engineering, The Hague, Netherlands, August 27–30, 2001).
27 S. Dagois-Bohy, S. Courrech du Pont, and S. Douady, “Singing-Sand Avalanches without Dunes,” Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2012): L20310.
28 E. R. Yarham, “Mystery of Singing Sands,” Natural History 56 (1947): 324–25.
29 C. Grant, Rock Art of the American Indian (Dillon, CO: VistaBooks, 1992).
30 “Sound Effects: Castle Thunder,” Hollywood Lost and Found, http://www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/sound/castlethunder.html, accessed December 31, 2012.
31 Tim Gedemer, personal communication, June 24, 2012.
32 Heat is the normal explanation for why the shock wave forms; for example, see F. Blanco, P. La Rocca, C. Petta, and F. Riggi, “Modelling Digital Thunder,” European Journal of Physics 30 (2009): 139–45. But another suggestion is that the energy for the sound waves comes from breaking chemical bonds; see P. Graneau, “The Cause of Thunder,” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 22 (1989): 1083–94.
33 H. S. Ribner and D. Roy, “Acoustics of Thunder: A Quasilinear Model for Tortuous Lightning,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 72 (1982): 1911–25.
34 D. P. Hill, “What Is That Mysterious Booming Sound?” Seismology Research Letters 82 (2011): 619–22.
35 D. Ramde and C. Antlfinger, “Wis. Town Longs for Relief
from Mysterious Booms,” Associated Press, March 21, 2012.
36 J. Van Berkel, “Data Point to Earthquakes Causing Mysterious Wis. Booms,” USA Today, March 22, 2012.
37 C. Davidson, “Earthquake Sounds,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 28 (1938): 147–61.
38 L. Bogustawski, “Jets Make Sonic Boom in False Alarm,” Guardian (London), April 12, 2012.
39 For more stories about Krakatoa, see S. Winchester, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (New York: Harper-Collins, 2005). The various contemporary quotes are extracted from this book.
40 Although no instrument existed to give a precise value of loudness, eyewitness reports have led to a commonly quoted figure of 180 decibels at 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the volcano. But I have been unable to find the origin of this estimation.
41 D. Leffman, The Rough Guide to Iceland (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 277.
42 Tim Leighton, personal communication, March 1, 2012.
43 The speed of the water ejection can exceed the speed of sound, leading to small sonic booms that make thudding sounds; see T. S. Bryan, The Geysers of Yellowstone, 4th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008), 5–6.
44 Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle.
45 T. Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree (Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com, 2007), 7.
46 O. Fégeant, “Wind-Induced Vegetation Noise. Part I: A Prediction Model,” Acustica united with Acta Acustica 85 (1999): 228–40.
47 I was told this by garden designer Paul Hervey Brookes during an interview for BBC Radio 4 conducted May 20, 2011.
48 C. M. Ward, “Papers of Mel (Charles Melbourne) Ward,” AMS 358, Box 3, Notebook 31 (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1939). The two quotes are from C. A. Pocock, “Romancing the Reef: History, Heritage and the Hyper-real” (PhD dissertation, James Cook University, Australia, 2003).
49 Y. Qureshi, “Tower Blows the Whistle on Corrie,” Manchester Evening News, May 24, 2006.