Saturday 14 July 2018

Sound: reading 2, "The Loudest Sound You've Never Heard" (RW3, p91, Developing critical thinking)

What we read

We have just read and checked our understanding of "The Loudest Sound You've Never Heard" (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013). 

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Our response 

Having read the text a couple of times, Bixby and Scanlon now invite us to respond to the ideas in it in a critical thinking exercise.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions

Having spent a couple of minutes planning, respond to these questions in a comment. 

  • Would it be advantageous for humans to be able to hear infrasound? Why or why not? Briefly explain the  pros and cons that you thought of. 


  • In our daily lives, we are surrounded by  all sorts of sounds. What sounds are the most pleasant of relaxing? Do you enjoy being in complete silence? 
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Reference

  • Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education

11 comments:

  1. My first idea was that I love being in complete silence. When I'm at my brother's farm in Australia, the quiet is wonderful. And walking down Silom Road, the awful sound of traffic sometimes annoys me. But when I think about it a bit more, I'm not so sure. It isn't completely silent at my brother's farm: it just seems that way. There are birds calling, his cattle lowing, insects buzzing, and the leaves rustling in the wind. If there really was complete silence, maybe I would be freaked out. I don't know that I've ever experienced complete silence. Would I hear my blood rushing if there were no other sounds to attract my notice? So, although I enjoy relative silence, I'm not sure how I would feel if I were ever in a situation with complete silence.

    When I'm working, I don't mind some background noise, for example, the low hum of my air conditioner, but I can't work with the TV on, unless it's something really silly like an American series that I don't want to listen to. Music doesn't work for me: I can't work if there is music on because either I want to listen to it, or it annoys me.

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  2. I like piano song in a calm melody though I'm not sure which sound relaxes me most. People usually believe the sound of nature, such as the sound of rain, is relaxing. I listened to it a couple times when I have to concentrate with other things in the same time, since a song might distract me, but I don't continue listening to it. Anyway, if I have to study for an exam, I like it to be quiet.

    I heard that if you are in a room that is designed to absorb sound, the room in which it would be completely silent, you will hear your own heartbeat. And that if you are in the room long enough, you could gone mad.

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  3. I think that infrasound have both of pros and cons, which could help us in many ways such as warning before the disaster will occur. But actually, the infrasound are dangerous for us too, because it will cause uneasiness and uncomfortable feeling for us after we hear it.

    In my daily life, I think nature sound is the most pleasant sound to hear. Unfortunately, in Bangkok we cannot hear that type of sound even in the garden. To find that peaceful place, we need to go to other province such as Chiang Mai or Koh-Rach which have a huge amount of forest and far away from chaos in the city. In those places, it will be great for you to relax from problem and hear the voice of nature as much as you want.

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  4. I think understanding what infrasound can do and how it works can benefit us human a lot, but it would be hectic to be able to hear infrasound by our own ears.

    As we know that infrasound can help us predict natural events, studying infrasound can save lives. But imagine our lives hearing infrasound all the time, we will have the sounds of elephants, whales, birds and moving land in our head, and I think we can't stand to hear all of that all the time. I would let the scientists do their job for this.

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  5. 1. I am interested in this question. It reminded me about the sound of electronic bass. The music instrument can also produce low frequency of sound, and I enjoy listening to this kind of sound. Some research shows that low frequency can make our heart shake.
    2) I think the sounds of nature is good for human mind, especially the sound of waves in the sea. It makes people feel relax.

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  6. It would be advantageous for humans to hear infra sound because it warns the creatures to know if some incidents might happen. However it would be annoying if we can hear that sound all the time.
    The sound that I like the most is the sound of the wave in the sea because it the sound of nature which I don't hear much in my daily life, but I also enjoy being in silence too, especially when I sleep or reading which needs much concentration.

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  7. I think, it would be disadvantages for humans to be able to hear infrasound. First, it might be very difficult to sleep if we can hear every infrasound in the world. Also, we would be easily distracted by every sound in this world which can cause confusion and may have an impact on our working and studying. It's kind of hard to focus to teacher voice with these kinds of infrasound all around us. Our life would be much harder to distinguish each different infrasound.

    The most pleasant sound for me is the sound of the sea waving.

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  8. I think it would be advantages for human to hear infrasound because this could help us to encounter with natural disaster and we can warn our community to escape from harmful situation. The cons of hearing infrasound, if we have this function in human, we may stop researching on new technological devices to solve our problems.

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  9. In my opinion, humans can hear infrasound when they live in the quiet place or live nearest some place when it have loud sound in their ears. For example, sound thunderbolt, bomb explode or concert sound.
    If we focus to listen something and live in the quite place, we will hear the infrasound very loud sound.

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  10. For me it would be advantages for human to be able to hear infrasound because it's a new experience for human of hearing something new yet maybe it would make you annoyed in sometimes, for example, hearing the ants walking, hearing the sound of air condition.
    From my opinion, the clam music is the most pleasant sound but I don't think being in the complete silence would be a good idea for long term effect because there was a research said that the place where is extremely silence will make some trouble to your mind and can affect the mental system.

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  11. If we could hear the infrasound, I think, it would be a chaos. People would perceive to many information and those ranges of sounds. It might cause people hearing and health problems like they were said in the articles that the sound effected people's feelings. However, to hear the infrasound would help people to be aware of nature situation, for example, if Tsunami was coming and it created the infrasound, people would know and prepare to escape. Moreover, hearing the sound would broaden human's knowledge in the science studies and lead to help understand nature events, animal communication, etc.

    The examples of sounds that would make me feel relaxed are the nature sound like wind, birds and the sound of music, not those metal and rock.

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