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I agree that overall the word choice is poor/ambiguous. But I think grammatically "undetectable" modifies "sound" here, which is true if the physical stimulus
by lamename 4y ago
I agree that overall the word choice is poor/ambiguous.
But I think grammatically "undetectable" modifies "sound" here, which is true if the physical stimulus is not detectable as sound, but tactile.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- polynomial 4y agoIs it really sound if it is undetectable as such? Isn't sound our reaction to a pressure wave (in a certain range over which we have 'hearing')?
- taftster 4y agoGenerally you say you "feel" those low frequencies not "hear" them. But I get what you're saying, what is sound exactly? Is it something that is perceived in our eardrum, or is it something beyond that?
- xypage 4y agoWell animals can hear sounds at frequencies that we can't, so the cutoff shouldn't be when we can detect something. But in that case, do we set a cutoff on the lowest/highest frequencies that we know some animal can hear? Then we might discover something later that increases the range, what do we do then? It just makes more sense to generalize sound past what's actually audible, in my opinion at least.
- polynomial 4y ago(I was implicitly including other animals, some of which can hear sounds outside the human range, even if they cannot participate in online conversations.)
- KeytarHero 4y agoThen would you consider radio waves to be "light"?
- KeytarHero 4y agoExactly. It's not sound, it's infrasound. "Sound" means audible to humans, much how "light" means visible to humans (e.g. radio waves are not considered "light").