Brain busters

[Darkwood]

Right guys and girls, I'm kickstarting a thread that asks what appear to be quite simple to moderately complicated questions within the realms of what we observe daily to science and space.

These questions are designed to initially seem simple in solution, that is until you actually start thinking about the answer.

The only rule is that you please don't search the Net for the answers, its about confusion and actually using your own mind to resolve and answer the questions, its not a game of intelligence here and who can get the answer the quickest, its about the discussion and ideas... you'll get my drift.

Ill pop new questions up regularly based on how discussion are going and whether the previous questions have been put to bed, Ill number and headline the questions and when you get the answer Ill change the font and colour so its easy to locate from all the other posts.

 

[Darkwood]

Question 1-

If you make sure you're in a quiet room and procede to cover both ears with your hands you will be aware of a low frequency noise approx 20-30htz

All I want to know is what is the source of this noise or why do we perceive the noise if indeed all it not as it seems?

 

[R G]

The mother in law..

 

[Darkwood]

The mother in law..

I did say quiet room!... Mother in law and quiet room are terms that just don't go together.

 

[Rpa07]

I'll go for the frequency that muscle cells work at. Lots of different type muscles doing the body thing all at the same time produces the hum.
There is a quiet room in Switzerland or somewhere like that. It is so well soundproofed that you can hear the blood moving in your veins and you go mad after 20 mins - weLl I made it to 25, mwahaahaahaaa!
Not quite sure if all that info is true but it MAY be close.

 

[Darkwood]

@Rpa07
Nice theory, is there anyway you can reinforce this by trying anything?

 

[The Ghost]

The ears hear the bloodstream moving. After all you have major arteries moving blood up to the brain and the brain takes up to 70% of the blood its very greedy.

 

[The Ghost]

@Rpa07 mhmm and have you got a lot of muscle around or between your ears?

 

[Midwest]

It's the RAF warming up the Hercs at BZN again!

 

[mhar]

20-30Hz are some of the frequencies used in dubstep, you tend to feel these frequencies rather than hear them. Sound is a vibration of air, maybe the body is a better transmission media than free air and the large mass of your body 'collects' these frequencies better than the individual receptors in your ear?

 

[Rpa07]

Put foam earplugs in your ears and clench your jaw muscles - also moving your head and neck you'll hear all sorts pops and cracks - it's a trip. As mhar states, your ears aren't hearing the movement of air but probably the frequency of the vibration through your sinus airspaces.
In other words - I don't know and I'm beginning to blag my way through!

 

[sparkdog]

Is it the sound of last night's curry escaping?

 

[mhar]

A lot of amplifiers are clipped at 30Hz. If you are ever lucky enough to experience proper dubstep on a decent soundsystem and they are able to reproduce sub 30Hz, it is like somebody mapping out all your inner cavities the way you can feel the vibrations rattling around . Addictive

 

[Wilko]

I'll go for the frequency that muscle cells work at. Lots of different type muscles doing the body thing all at the same time produces the hum.

I vote for this too. The palms trap air in the outer ear canal, the vibe is the flexing of our arm muscles contracting and releasing trying to maintain a comfy pressure of palm on ear. That is, if this were done with ear defenders (for example) you wouldn't hear it ?

 

[Rpa07]

Thanks Wilko for the solidarity, although I think this is the only post I've seen from you that isn't back up by a regulation!
Respect always mate!
Rob