Ear plugs can be wonderful at blocking outside noise, but they come with a downside: they typically amplify internal bodily sounds, like our heartbeat, breathing, and chewing. This effect, called Keep reading
Tag: acoustics
Bravo!
Applauding is a familiar activity, but, as you stand for an encore in the concert hall, do you think about how you hold your hands and how that affects your Keep reading
The Physics of Vowels
Blow across the top of a glass bottle, and you’ll get a whistle-like sound. Put some liquid in there and the pitch of the sound changes. Our vocal tracts are Keep reading
Shouting Into the Wind is Easier Than You Think
“Shouting into the wind” usually means a failure to communicate, but it turns out that shouting into the wind doesn’t work the way people usually think. In fact, it’s easy Keep reading
The Architecture of Music
Photographer Charles Brooks offers a rare glimpse into the interiors of musical instruments in this series. Whether stringed, wind, or percussion, an instrument’s unseen interior structure creates the acoustic resonance Keep reading
Acoustic Cameras
Acoustic cameras use arrays of microphones to isolate where sounds are coming from. As Steve Mould shows in this video, they have some incredibly cool properties. They can show engineers Keep reading
Listen to a Martian Dust Devil
A lucky encounter led the Perseverance rover to record the first-ever sound of a dust devil on Mars. The rover happened to have its microphone on (something that only happens Keep reading
Recreating the Rings of Power Opening
Everyone loves a good title sequence, especially when they feature neat visuals. Many who watched “The Rings of Power” zeroed in immediately on their use of cymatics — visuals born Keep reading
Absorbing Sound with Moth Wings
Manmade soundproofing tends to be porous and bulky or very limited in the range of frequencies it can handle. In contrast, moths are natural absorbers of ultrasound, having evolved to Keep reading
Aligning by Bubble Array
Assembling structures from small components is often difficult. Techniques like optical tweezers are limited to very small objects, and magnetic techniques only work with certain materials. Here, researchers use acoustical Keep reading