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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Geoff: you reminded me of having loco whistling for crossing being funneled into my bedroom late at night, causing me to have nightmare about being run over by the train, and shaking so hard my brass bed rattled loud enough to wake me up.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
A scientific question here...
Bill remeinded me of when I was young. We lived a couple of miles from a railway crossing. I remember that the train whistle sounded clearer in the fall and winter than in the summer. Why would that be?
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
the train whistle sounded clearer in the fall and winter than in the summer. Why would that be?
bel, do recall if it was specificaly clearer when snow was on the ground? I believe snow on the ground tends to muffle background noise, with the billions of tiny spaces between the flakes tending to damp out echos, as in an anechoic chamber.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear belMarduk: Many things can influence such sounds. Wind, temperature, humidity, and foliage. The railroad in my home town was in a shallow valley, and there was a wide area with no obstructions between tracks and my home.
I had leaned against a auto door with faulty latch while auto was crossing tracks, and fell out into path of oncoming locomotive, which fortunately was going slow enough my father was able to stop the car and run back and get me, but locomotive was very close, and I was as you can imagine badly frightened, at about age two and a half.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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Oh my god Bill. No wonder you had nightmares. We would have at less.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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One other thing about train sounds. When on a train passing another train from opposite direction, the whistle of the other train changes pitch: "Wheeeeeyoooooo". That's how I learned about the Doppler principle.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Dr. Bill, I think we must be related.  Flying out of car doors runs in my family. Curiously, it seems that 2 1/2 must be the indicated age for such flight. I went flying when I was that age, wooden chair and all, and my daughter took flight from my mother's car at about the same age. Lucky for me, my sister had a good hold on my chair, so I didn't really fly, and my daughter managed to grab onto the open window frame and just dangled until my mother could stop the car! Tanks for the memories! 
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Joined: Nov 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
Ah, yes, the doppler effect. It makes train whistles even more mysterious when the pitch changes. Now, Bill, tell us about the astronomical equivalent of the Doppler effect, red shift!
As for why sound travels further in winter, colder air is denser, and sound travels faster and further the denser it is. That's why I can't learn anything: instructions travel in one ear and out the other at incredible speed, due to skull density!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Also, sounds travels better through water than air, (cf whales talking to each other half-way round the world) I believe. So, if the air is damp/humid it conducts sound better than if it is dry. So I am told.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"A proposition is like a train whistle. You like to hear it even if you know you aren't going anywhere."
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