What's the Sound Of A MethaneFall?

Kevin Nichols writes "Ever wonder what a "waterfall" on Titan might sound like? Professor Tim Leighton, of Southampton University, worked out what the sound of a methane and/or ethane fall might sound like. You can listen to a .wav file of the sound here: ISVR - Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. The Cassini-Huygens mission will carry a microphone with the Huygens lander. Perhaps we'll find out if he's right." (Here's a direct link to the simulated Titan fall, slightly buried in the text.)

Comments

Really interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not totally convinced that it's completely accurate. At the site, they have recordings of their technique applied to recreate sounds of waterfalls on Earth--i.e., artificial Earth waterfall sounds. Those artificial sounds bear only a modest resemblance to actual waterfall sounds (which they have a recording of also).

The actual terrestial waterfall sounds seem to have more low-frequency noise than is reproduced by their technique. The high-frequency noise of an actual waterfall, moreover, seems to be more complex--it seems to have a more "springy" or "reverbatory" quality.

There is a resemblance between the actual waterfall sounds and their simulated sounds--I don't mean to suggest they're radically different. It's just that the artificial earth sounds are different enough from the actual earth sounds, that I can't tell what to expect the actual Titan methane sounds to be like.

While I appreciate them being honest and straightforward about what their technique is, and what it produces, I'm a little skeptical of how realistic it is.

I'm also a bit surprised they took such a deductive, basic-physics approach to doing the simulation, rather than taking a more inferential, data-compression approach.

Oh well. Interesting, but seems to raise as many questions as it answers.

Re:Sounds like...

[hal9000]

Sounds like a fine idea. How do you mean "all without any programming" though? You'd have to have the code which determines sound based on the defined properties of all objects/surfaces involved, no?

Physical Environment

[theslashdude]

Wouldn't the sound of a specific fall greatly depend on the size and shape of the fall, the volume of material flowing, what it's flowing over and into, etc...? Otherwise, all waterfalls on earth should sound the same and I know that is not the case.

Re:Physical Environment

[bill_mcgonigle]

I didn't see mentioned whether the atmosphere was modeled in. Things sound different in different atmospheres as we all know from breathing in too many party balloons as kids.

What we really want to hear is what it would sounds like if a human ear managed to get into that environment somehow.

but the Science sounds good!

[Pi_0's don't shower]

They have a bit of the motivation on *why* they think this is a pretty reliable method if they find a signal what they're looking for here.

Those artificial sounds bear only a modest resemblance to actual waterfall sounds

To respond to your comment, no, I don't think it sounds exactly like the right waterfall, but the resemblance is strong enough that if you listen to the artificial one alone, you go, "Oh, that's a waterfall." Play the real one, and you'd say "Oh, that's a waterfall." You might say they're different waterfalls, but they sound similar enough to me. Same thing here, if you hear the "(m)ethane-fall" signal and play it next to the simulation, you would conclude they're two of the same phenomena, just not identical examples of it.

Re:Sounds like...

[ALeavitt]

Ok, I know someone already posted a response similar to this under another topic somewhere recently, but I don't remember where, so I'm going to paraphrase and recap.

The reason sound can't be simulated quickly in a game is the same reason light can't. Sure, there are games that have dynamic lighting and so forth, but in terms of actual raytracing, we're just approaching the possibility of having a playable real-time raytraced game - and that would require a behemoth of a machine.
Now, think about sound. If I drop a penny in a perfectly cubic room, the penny deforms a bit, as does the floor. The distortion (and return to normal) causes the sound wave. This wave then bounces off of all of the surfaces in the room, including the penny, overlapping, creating harmonics, etc. Even that would be tough to simulate. Now, imagine, for instance, a FPS. Complex, moving, 3D objects, all interacting, all creating sounds that bounce around. While this wouldn't be impossible to simulate, I wouldn't expect it to happen in realtime anytime soon.