The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World

The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World
ISBN-10
039324282X
ISBN-13
9780393242829
Category
Science
Pages
304
Language
English
Published
2014-02-10
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Author
Trevor Cox

Description

“A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening. . . . Anyone who has ever clapped, hollered or yodeled at an echo will delight in [Cox’s] zestful curiosity.”—New York Times Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noises—creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird. With forays into archaeology, neuroscience, biology, and design, Cox explains how sound is made and altered by the environment, how our body reacts to peculiar noises, and how these mysterious wonders illuminate sound’s surprising dynamics in everyday settings—from your bedroom to the opera house. The Sound Book encourages us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us.

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