Re:The ear does not do a Fourier transform
by bragr on Thursday October 30, 2025 @04:05PM
(#45764677)
Well without the humorous size difference, this is basically what whales and elephants do for long distance communication.
Re:The ear does not do a Fourier transform
by Terr_ on Thursday October 30, 2025 @05:33PM
(#45765641)
Was playing around with a fundamental frequency calculator [0] to associate certain sizes to hertz, then using a tone-generator [1] to get a subjective idea of what it'd sound like.
Though of course, nature has plenty of other tricks, like how Koalas can go down to ~27hz. [2]
[0] https://acousticalengineer.com/fundamental-frequency-calcula...
Re:The ear does not do a Fourier transform
by fuzzfactor on Thursday October 30, 2025 @07:12PM
(#45766503)
How long would a Dachshund have to be for it to sound like a 60 kilo Great Dane?
Sounds like an antenna, if you'll accept electromagnetic noise then there are some fish that could pass for your shrew, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnotus
I’m not sure exactly how, but cats can emit a surprisingly low growl when they want to. Like, as deep as a large human would be able to. So there’s more going on than just linear size… And how I’m wondering what the lowest recorded pitch made by a shrew is.
Now I'm imagining some alien shrew with vocal-cords (or syrinx, or whatever) that runs the entire length of its body, just so that it can emit lower-frequency noises for some reason.