Sorry, Ted,

Your argument assumes a built-in clock in you brain that "ticks" at
one-second intervals. All 415.3 means is the time interval of the wave
is not in exact seconds.

-- 
 Rodney Myrvaagnes
  [log in to unmask]

On Sun, Feb 7, 2016, at 13:34, T. Diehl wrote:
> Hello David,
> This topic, amongst others was in one of the textbooks we used in a
> course
> at conservatory, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics or such... The section
> on how the ear works when 'tuning' was amazingly informative and
> fascinating.
> 
> Anyway, let me try to explain in a simplified way, leaving out decibels
> and
> other aspects:
> Any tone or pitch, is the product of vibrations taking place within a
> unit
> of time (for Hz: 1 second)
> 
> So let's imagine a simple sinusoid, a plain tone like those from a tone
> generator and put it in a graph.Here is one we can use:
> http://www.featurepics.com/online/simple-red-sound-wave-973855.aspx
> 
> If this wave you see on the link is taking place exactly within one
> second,
> we could then say it is a picture of a sinusoid tone of 1 Hz. That is to
> say both the 'humps' above AND below comprise the 1 Hz example.
> 
> It travels to your ear. (I leave out the inner workings further!)
> The upper 'hump' compresses the typanum inwards;
> The lower 'hump' allows the tympanum to release outwards;
> If this COMPLETE CYCLE inwards/outwards cycle takes place in one second
> you
> will hear a tone of one Hz. 2x of these cycles, 2Hz - etc. etc. etc.
> 
> In reality, the sinus is incredibly complex, with overtones and all kinds
> of spikes.
> And human hearing does not go dwon to 1Hz  ;@-)
> Nonetheless, this inward/outward motion in a second is how we are able to
> define pitch as Hz.
> Even microphones work in this exact same manner.
> 
> So, then what about the 0.3 Hz question?
> Adding 0.3 Hz to this example means that the sinus would start another
> new,
> partial journey upwards in the picture. Your ear cannot percive it as
> pitch
> because, simply put, it needs the whole cycle of in/out as a measurement
> -
> pitch is for the ear a very 'mechanical' process. Depending on the
> decibel
> level and your distance to the sound, that 0.3 will dissapper into a
> perception of color or be ignored by your brain
> 
> Hope this helps?
> Cheers
> Theodore
> 
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