Slashdot Mirror
Duck's Quacks Really Do Echo
troc writes "Finally that age-old myth of the duck's quack has been overturned. It has long been thought that the duck's quack did not produce an echo, so some boffins with spare time and a duck did some experiments.
"
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=duck+quack+group :alt.folklore.*+author:rees&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sel m=6b6b4da6.0308281728.3653b272%40posting.google.co m&rnum=1
Summary:
a duck's echo sounds very much like the original quack (distribution of frequencies), and thus is hard to distinguish from the original sound. Also ducks' typical environments (plants, absorbing most sound) means that the echo is quiet. Therefore it's very hard to actually hear a distinct echo from a duck in its natural environment.
You can _contrive_ a sitution where you can hear the echo trivially, though.
YAW.
Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
Apparently it's just due to the fact that the duck's quack's echo is a lot harder to hear - hence some sort of popular rumour must have sprung up saying that it actually doesn't echo. The study confirmed that it's hard to hear and that it does nevertheless echo (which is blatantly obvious for anyone with some sense, of course).
Overall, a thorough waste of time and money, this study...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Well, there could have been, and still might be, some sort of human perceptual quirk that prevents us from hearing the echo of a duck's quack. Just like there are optical illusions, there can be auditory illusions as well.
The scientist who worked on this problem was interviewed on the BBC this morning. He admitted the result was obvious but it generated a lot of interest in science which was a good thing given that most people's education in science stops at age 16.