Description
"A tour of the world's most amazing acoustic phenomena that reveals how sound works in everyday life. Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the world's strangest sounds. As an acoustic engineer, Cox has spent his entire career eradicating odd noises -- echoes in concert halls, clamor in classrooms. But one day, while exploring the sewers of London, he heard something so astonishing that he had an epiphany: rather than squashing strange sounds, we should be celebrating the most curious and bizarre sound effects - the "sonic wonders of the world." The Sound Book is the story of his search. Cox travels to the Mojave Desert where sand dunes sing. In France he discovers an echo that tells jokes. In California he drives down a musical road that plays the "William Tell Overture" (he's disappointed to find that it's out of tune). And discovery is so impressive that it merits an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. Investigating the mystery of each sonic wonder, Cox uses everyday acoustics to show how sound works. A chapter on bells, for example, explains why metal in train tracks whistles to announce an approaching locomotive. Cox's trip to an underground oil cavern in Scotland, where a single pistol shot echoes for nearly two minutes, reveals how cathedral acoustics changed liturgy -- and why it's so hard to hear in noisy restaurants. With forays into physics, music, 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. Revealing a hidden aural world, The Sound Book encourages us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacaphony all around us." --
