Concept in Definition ABC

According to the different definitions that have been proposed throughout the history of humanity about the term sound, there are two ways of understanding it, on the one hand, the physical, says that sound is anything that expresses audible high-frequency elastic waves and of the other, the physiology, getting closer to what any mortal like you and me, who only saw physics up close during high school, argues that sound is the sensation That produces in our ear, after that movement waves explained by physics. As an additional comment, it is worth noting that these "elastic waves" propagate exclusively through matter, so they do not there is possible sound in a vacuum, no matter how much science fiction shows us noisy detonations in the hollow immensity of space sidereal. Instead, the sound is propagated with greater velocity the denser the medium in which it does it; Therefore, while the tones that our ears perceive in the air travel at about 330 meters per second (the engineers' "speed of sound"), travel is much faster in water or other heavier contexts specific.

That is, sincerely and very surely, except for someone who is dedicated to the study of the phenomenon of sound, none of us stop to think throughout the process that is engaged in generation of a sound, even our own, produced by the vocal cords when we speak, because being something that takes place in thousandths of seconds, practically, it does not provoke too much reflection in our head. This very fast phenomenon requires a multiplicity of steps that include the displacement of mechanical waves through the air, the stimulation of moving air on the eardrum membrane or the bones of the skull, the transmission of these impulses in the more complex structures of the inner ear, their transformation into impulses nervous and the brain's interpretation of these "waves" as an annoying noise, the murmur of the wind, a musical chord, a human voice or any other expression cognitive.

But beyond all these etymological and personal appreciations, the human being lives daily with sounds, as much or more than with his family. Indeed, sounds allow us something basic and fundamental for humanity: communication, thanks to him and to the fact that our ancestors discovered the power of sounds to interact, we arrive at evolution of nowadays. In fact, with the probable exception of dolphins and other cetaceans that would use sound and ultrasound to "dialogue" with each other, only the species human is capable of encoding and decoding information in the form of sounds (words, phrases, stories) to transmit it between them people. Language, regardless of its articulated or tonal condition, is the result of the ability of human beings to produce sounds (phonatory apparatus), capture them (hearing) and process them (Central Nervous System) as necessary to convey a message. For some philosophers, writing, perhaps the greatest invention in history, is nothing more than a modality special to transmit sounds without the need for an ear to capture them, but only for a brain to understand.

And in another step below and as a means of communication too, human beings use and we generate certain sounds for different life situations: if we want to generate alerts we use a horn, an alarm, to relax, the music that we like the most, to congratulate or celebrate something, we wield a high-pitched sound from the throat or clap our hands. The particular case of music deserves a particular comment, since, for many, this activity is considered as "the art of combining the sounds", highlighting its undisputed relevance as a means of communication. As a true universal language and independently of languages, the message transmitted for a piece of music is a remarkable example of the relevance of sound in the lives of beings humans.

Anyway, without the sound In our daily life, everything that happens to us would be quite similar to a silent movie like the ones that comedian Charles Chaplin and other great actors of the early days of the seventh used to act art, who were capable of entertaining even in the absence of sounds, which does not cease to highlight their genius. Actually, it would all be pretty boring; I lean towards blockbusters that use a lot of explosions ...