> Sound, an omnipresent sensory stimulator, holds significant relevance in the human experience, as it continually engages our auditory and mental faculties.
This first sentence makes it seem as if the paper was written by aliens. Not even deaf people would gain anything from that sentence.
I think LLMs have caused me to be more perceptive to and annoyed by stuff like this.
Writing like this makes me sigh, exhaling air, the omnipresent chemical stimulator, which holds significant relevance in the human experience, as it continually engages our biological and mental faculties.
That first sentence has been a totally standard way to open a hard-sciences research paper for at least twenty years now. (I’m speaking as someone who has both published myself, and as a side gig, has done editing of non-native English speakers’ papers from many other branches of the sciences.) A writer has to start somewhere, and that has always been a matter of social convention.
Yeah I kinda liked it. It made me stop and listen where I was, realizing all the weird noises happening around me that I was mentally trying to cancel out.
Apologies for the ADHD induced tangent. Has anyone else noticed that regular little party balloons seem to have a passive noise cancelling effect? If you bring them close to your ear there's a zone of 'dead air' when they are maybe an inch away. My theory was that there's something in passing through the rubber envelope that creates a phase delay or inversion, but it could just all be in my head lol.
edit: Steve Mould's video "I Made a Lens, But for Sound" demonstrates how balloons filled with gasses of different density than the surrounding air, act as a lens on sound waves. Helium filled balloons will scatter sound because the helium is less dense than air. He shows how a balloon filled with carbon dioxide can focus the sound.
A balloon filled with a gas that has a different sound speed than that of air has been used as an
acoustic lens. One purpose of the lens is to show refraction of sound waves in an analogy to
geometric optics. We discuss the physics of the balloon lens demonstration. To determine the
validity of a gas-filled balloon as a classroom demonstration of an acoustic lens and to understand
the corresponding phenomena, its physics is considered analytically, numerically, and
experimentally. Our results show that although a geometric analogy is a good first-order
approximation, scattering theory is required to fully understand the observed phenomena. Thus this
demonstration can be adapted to a wide range of students, from those learning the basic principles
of refraction to advanced students studying scattering
Do other smooth surface spherical objects have the same effect?
Sound reflects off smooth surfaces. The ballon is probably just acting like any simple physical obstruction, because the surface does a lot all by itself even if theres almost no substance.
The air inside the ballon is also at a different density than outside, without helium, because of the elastic tension in the rubber. The air inside is always slightly compressed vs outside. I have no idea how much the two densities must differ to make the accoustic lense effect. I din't think it's this, just everyone seemed to be overlooking that even plain air will also have a different density.
> Sound, an omnipresent sensory stimulator, holds significant relevance in the human experience, as it continually engages our auditory and mental faculties.
This first sentence makes it seem as if the paper was written by aliens. Not even deaf people would gain anything from that sentence.
I think LLMs have caused me to be more perceptive to and annoyed by stuff like this.
Writing like this makes me sigh, exhaling air, the omnipresent chemical stimulator, which holds significant relevance in the human experience, as it continually engages our biological and mental faculties.
That first sentence has been a totally standard way to open a hard-sciences research paper for at least twenty years now. (I’m speaking as someone who has both published myself, and as a side gig, has done editing of non-native English speakers’ papers from many other branches of the sciences.) A writer has to start somewhere, and that has always been a matter of social convention.
Its low on informational content, but as an introductory sentence seems fine to me.
Yeah I kinda liked it. It made me stop and listen where I was, realizing all the weird noises happening around me that I was mentally trying to cancel out.
Apologies for the ADHD induced tangent. Has anyone else noticed that regular little party balloons seem to have a passive noise cancelling effect? If you bring them close to your ear there's a zone of 'dead air' when they are maybe an inch away. My theory was that there's something in passing through the rubber envelope that creates a phase delay or inversion, but it could just all be in my head lol.
it maybe acting as an acoustic lens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLBmWF9Xo10
edit: Steve Mould's video "I Made a Lens, But for Sound" demonstrates how balloons filled with gasses of different density than the surrounding air, act as a lens on sound waves. Helium filled balloons will scatter sound because the helium is less dense than air. He shows how a balloon filled with carbon dioxide can focus the sound.
Somebody wrote a paper on it in 2008: https://physics.byu.edu/docs/publication/644
Here's Harvard demonstrating it too: https://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/...Do other smooth surface spherical objects have the same effect?
Sound reflects off smooth surfaces. The ballon is probably just acting like any simple physical obstruction, because the surface does a lot all by itself even if theres almost no substance.
The air inside the ballon is also at a different density than outside, without helium, because of the elastic tension in the rubber. The air inside is always slightly compressed vs outside. I have no idea how much the two densities must differ to make the accoustic lense effect. I din't think it's this, just everyone seemed to be overlooking that even plain air will also have a different density.
My wife makes balloon arches and I've never noticed but this sounds fascinating. Maybe I'll get her to work, for "science". :P
Note: Her balloons are not typically helium filled, so the other users question about air/helium might make a difference.
The latex from which the balloon is made is a decent soundproofing material, so what you're hearing is likely just that.
Having filled a room with balloons, this is very noticeable. It also make heating the room difficult.
Could it be an interaction between static electricity from the balloon and tiny elements in the ear?
Do you see a difference regardless of helium or air? I assume from your description that it has to be inflated to work.
im curious about replicating this
It seems like the effect would be very frequency specific.
Cool stuff, especially for applications where space is at a premium and the adaptability of the material is at a premium.