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| Agent Matt | Posted: Jul 21, 2010 - 13:29 |
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 Genuine American Monster Level: 70 CS Original | For reasons that remain mostly mysterious, the note we call B flat does the oddest things. Here are a few of them. B Flats and Alligators During World War II, the New York Philharmonic was visiting the American Museum of Natural History. During rehearsal, somebody played a note that upset a resident live alligator named Oscar. Oscar, who'd been in the museum on 81st Street, suddenly began to bellow. Naturally, with so many scientists in residence, an experiment was quickly devised to see how to get Oscar to bellow again. Various musicians — string, percussive and brass — were brought to Oscar to play various notes. It turned out the culprit was B flat, one octave below middle C. The experiment was described back in the 1940s. I repeated the experiment on an ABC News broadcast in the 1990s, playing a B flat to a collection of gators at a roadside attraction in Florida and recording their bellows. Why B flat? You'd have to ask an alligator. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7442915 | |||||
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| anticultist | Posted: Jul 21, 2010 - 13:55 |
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 Brainwashing you for money Level: 15 CS Original | Chances are its a sympathetic reaction to a resonant frequency within its ears anatomy. Perhaps its triggering the alligators response, maybe it is due to a particular sound they react to naturally in the wild amongst each other ? For an example when the designs of helicopters were ongoing there was a particular example of a prototype that kept crashing no matter what test pilots flew it, noone could figure out why it kept happening. the design seemed perfect and there was nothing unusual about it. Simple fix mount the chair on a damping spring system to remove sympathetic vibration et voila. Id say its something similar to this triggering a response from the alligator. PS If I recall correctly for any geeks out there it was being caused due to the frequency @ around 40Hz midway between A0 - A1 PPS The staircase scenario is pretty easily explained by reverberation and acoustic properties of the stairwell. Most acoustic anomalies are directly related to the spaces they are in, also there is the element of psychoacoustics that needs to be considered, but since it was recorded then the evidence points to acoustic properties of the building. | |||||
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| anticultist | Posted: Jul 21, 2010 - 15:12 |
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Brainwashing you for money Level: 15 CS Original | OK so I just did a quick bit of research in alligator calls and hearing & using deductive reasoning I am going to make a proposition: B♭ above middle C is approximately 466.164 Hz Notice the Octave drops down through all the harmonics of B♭, The latter two harmonics in the low bass octaves are the ones to pay attention to. It turns out alligators mating calls:
[reference: http://www.acoustics.org/press/151st/Todd.html ] It is my simple guess that this has something to do with it. The harmonic content is causing the animals to react to the frequency content. Perhaps the alligators that react to it are the dominant males, or in season females, but I am proposing it is mating call related. | |||||
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