In my noise-reduction career I had many opportunities to see that most machines generate far more noise than necessary. When these machines first were designed, noise was not a priority, so it was therefore pretty much ignored. Thus my colleagues and I were able to bring about dramatic reductions in noise levels of the machines that we studied. When manufacturers were shown how to quiet their products, they usually were pleasantly surprised and even quite willing to incorporate our suggestions (especially those who made the noisiest machines and who sensed that the EPA would soon come knocking).
Indeed, those were the heady days. We noise acousticians were excited about the prospect of a future freer of humanity’s din. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Other priorities interfered—the oil shortage shifted priorities in another direction. Shortly after Reagan came to office, EPA’s office of Noise Abatement and Control was first gutted of capable personnel and then closed down in the early 80s. I guess the reversal of the noise tide contributed to my hanging up my sound level meter and migrating to the quieter rural Shenandoah Valley.
Since setting down roots here some 30 years ago, I have come even more to treasure the quietude that surrounds me. But it’s all relative. It may be far quieter here than in the city, but one becomes more sensitive and I find that interfering noise is still far too common for me. In the city I expected it to be noisy, while out here I expect it to be quiet—but that’s not always the case. When I recline in my outdoor tub in the evenings, I especially treasure the quiet. I find airplanes and distant barking dogs irritating. I also am aware that, without the lower background noise around here, I’d not even hear these disturbances.
Despite my annoyance with noise, I am aware that without the much quieter environment that I now live in, I’d miss so many precious aural events. The gentle breeze drifting across the hollows would be missed. The chatter of a distant squirrel or the distant response of an owl to a local’s call would fade into background chatter. I’d never hear the soft swish of the titmouse’s wings, as it glides down to the feeder. These are hushed happenings I’d otherwise miss. I love them.
Like the light pollution that prevents city dwellers from seeing but a few of the brightest stars and keeps them ignorant of the 4000 or so stars they would otherwise see in a dark country sky, incessant noise can inure us to these irritants and disguise the subtle delights of nature. Until that masking visual and aural interference is reduced, we don’t know what we are missing. The loss is tragic. I am deeply grateful that I can see and hear what my rural site allows.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Silent Spaces—Part 1
Last year I read a new book that struck a resonant chord within me. Gordon Hempton and John Grossman wrote One Square Inch of Silence in an attempt to wake people up to the fact that our auditory environment is badly polluted. Most everyone knows that cities are noisy places. Music, traffic, and most every human activity are overly loud. Our ears are assaulted by TV, by the neighbor’s yard machines, by passing traffic, and by constant airplane flights to and from nearby airports.
Hempton and Grossman focused on the incessant human-made noise in the wilderness. Hempton has scoured the country looking for really quiet locations—finding that they are virtually nonexistent. Even the most remote corners of our national parks are not free of the intrusive noise of human activity. Snowmobiles and four-wheel machines invade backcountry. Heavy airplane traffic rains down its continuous noise upon us. Even the most isolated corners get violated several times every hour with overflights. The noise of a jet at 35,000 feet can be heard scores of miles away.
In an attempt to dramatize the situation, Hempton has found a tiny patch of land—one square inch in area—that is, as far as he can tell, the most noise-free spot in the country. He’s trekked into many remote locations with sound level meter in hand and ears at alert, seeking pristine quiet locations.
Hempton’s quietest spot is a one square inch that he found in the Olympic National Park on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. He lives nearby and often hikes in, to savor the (near) silence in that little patch. Trying to raise awareness of the problem, he drove across country a couple of years ago in an old VW microbus—ending up in the other Washington (D.C.), to meet government officials and try to convince them to take action to lower the volume. It remains to be seen whether or not they heard him. (Is that a pun?)
When I read this book, the location from which the resonant chord resounded in my soul was created during my former career in acoustics. My focus in those days was to investigate how machines generated excessive noise and to conduct experiments to demonstrate how to quiet them. It was the heady days of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s—in wake of the Noise Control Act, which charged EPA with the mission of reducing noise pollution. (EPA was also enjoined with reducing air and water pollution.)
Studies showed that noise is far more than an intrusive, unpleasant thing. It’s a health issue—and that’s what got EPA going. Exposure to loud noise can damage the delicate hearing process. But noise is also a psychological problem. It can disorient us (and animals even more), create emotional and physical stress, and interfere with sleep.
More noise next time…
Hempton and Grossman focused on the incessant human-made noise in the wilderness. Hempton has scoured the country looking for really quiet locations—finding that they are virtually nonexistent. Even the most remote corners of our national parks are not free of the intrusive noise of human activity. Snowmobiles and four-wheel machines invade backcountry. Heavy airplane traffic rains down its continuous noise upon us. Even the most isolated corners get violated several times every hour with overflights. The noise of a jet at 35,000 feet can be heard scores of miles away.
In an attempt to dramatize the situation, Hempton has found a tiny patch of land—one square inch in area—that is, as far as he can tell, the most noise-free spot in the country. He’s trekked into many remote locations with sound level meter in hand and ears at alert, seeking pristine quiet locations.
Hempton’s quietest spot is a one square inch that he found in the Olympic National Park on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. He lives nearby and often hikes in, to savor the (near) silence in that little patch. Trying to raise awareness of the problem, he drove across country a couple of years ago in an old VW microbus—ending up in the other Washington (D.C.), to meet government officials and try to convince them to take action to lower the volume. It remains to be seen whether or not they heard him. (Is that a pun?)
When I read this book, the location from which the resonant chord resounded in my soul was created during my former career in acoustics. My focus in those days was to investigate how machines generated excessive noise and to conduct experiments to demonstrate how to quiet them. It was the heady days of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s—in wake of the Noise Control Act, which charged EPA with the mission of reducing noise pollution. (EPA was also enjoined with reducing air and water pollution.)
Studies showed that noise is far more than an intrusive, unpleasant thing. It’s a health issue—and that’s what got EPA going. Exposure to loud noise can damage the delicate hearing process. But noise is also a psychological problem. It can disorient us (and animals even more), create emotional and physical stress, and interfere with sleep.
More noise next time…
Monday, February 8, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Superorganism Ann—Part 2
Like all creatures, Ann also has some qualities that uniquely define her. She is deaf and blind—but in compensation, she possesses superior senses of smell, taste, and touch. Living underground in one location all her life, she neither needs to see nor hear. But oh, her sense of smell! For instance, she can emit some 12 different chemical signals, which she can combine in a highly skilled manner—deciding when, where, and why to release pheromones, as well as to mix them on certain occasions. She has a chemical communication system analogous to the chemical signals our guts and brains emit, as they successfully carry out their functions.
Ann could be perfectly happy if she never met another being of her kind. She is a hermit (I can relate to that). But similar beings do live nearby. She knows they’re out there and she occasionally encounters one of them. And they are usually not friendly meetings—as she and each of her rivals (I’ll call them Judy and Sally) need a minimal amount of territory to survive. Evolution has seen to it that there is plenty of competition for the available space and food. When Ann was younger she was robust and virile. Neither Judy nor Sally dared to challenge her then.
But when Ann reached 30, something fateful happened: the queen died. It was as if one of our vital organs became diseased and began to shut down. Our intelligent bodies would try to fight off the problem, but if the disease seized the upper hand or if we are simply too old to keep up the struggle, we will at some point succumb.
Ann began to falter and weaken. Judy lived right next door and began to sense her advantage. At first, Judy tentatively challenged, as Ann bravely put up a front. But in time Judy sensed her rival’s frailty and launched an all-out invasion. In a matter of a few days Ann lost the battle and perished. Judy now prospered with her expanded territory. Ann had lived a full and lengthy life. She did well. But like all creatures, death is the final destiny.
I like thinking of an ant colony as a specific individual. It puts the story of the life of this superorganism on a par with that of a bird or a rabbit. I can ponder the intelligent behavior of the colony and not get stuck with the unlikely image of how a collection of dumb creatures could possibly do all that. Instead, I imagine Ann, and her amazing accomplishments then seem more reasonable to me. (Besides, it’s fun.) The next time I come upon an anthill, I’ll picture the blind and deaf creature who lives down there—a creature whose sense of smell is just amazing. Thanks, Ed Wilson!
Ann could be perfectly happy if she never met another being of her kind. She is a hermit (I can relate to that). But similar beings do live nearby. She knows they’re out there and she occasionally encounters one of them. And they are usually not friendly meetings—as she and each of her rivals (I’ll call them Judy and Sally) need a minimal amount of territory to survive. Evolution has seen to it that there is plenty of competition for the available space and food. When Ann was younger she was robust and virile. Neither Judy nor Sally dared to challenge her then.
But when Ann reached 30, something fateful happened: the queen died. It was as if one of our vital organs became diseased and began to shut down. Our intelligent bodies would try to fight off the problem, but if the disease seized the upper hand or if we are simply too old to keep up the struggle, we will at some point succumb.
Ann began to falter and weaken. Judy lived right next door and began to sense her advantage. At first, Judy tentatively challenged, as Ann bravely put up a front. But in time Judy sensed her rival’s frailty and launched an all-out invasion. In a matter of a few days Ann lost the battle and perished. Judy now prospered with her expanded territory. Ann had lived a full and lengthy life. She did well. But like all creatures, death is the final destiny.
I like thinking of an ant colony as a specific individual. It puts the story of the life of this superorganism on a par with that of a bird or a rabbit. I can ponder the intelligent behavior of the colony and not get stuck with the unlikely image of how a collection of dumb creatures could possibly do all that. Instead, I imagine Ann, and her amazing accomplishments then seem more reasonable to me. (Besides, it’s fun.) The next time I come upon an anthill, I’ll picture the blind and deaf creature who lives down there—a creature whose sense of smell is just amazing. Thanks, Ed Wilson!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Superorganism Ann—Part 1
In the January 25 issue of The New Yorker is a wonderful article of “fiction” by E.O. Wilson. I’ve written here before about Wilson, a preeminent writer-biologist who is quite likely the world’s leading expert on ants. His article in The New Yorker is “fiction,” only in the sense that he is describing the life of a hypothetical ant colony—how it began, how it thrived, and how it expired. It is a delightful story that pulls the reader into the heart of a prosperous community of 10,000 ants and the workings of its complex society.
Wilson describes how the queen of his imagined community flew from her birth colony, became inseminated, and initiated her own colony. She is the vital center of the community, which Wilson calls a “superorganism.” I have written before about the phenomenon of emergent intelligence (1/28/09 and 5/7/09) and how a tight-knit group of creatures exhibits intelligence far beyond what any one of them possesses—a kind of superorganism.
As I pondered Wilson’s story—titled “Trailhead”—I found myself thinking of his superorganism of ants, not as a collection of cooperating insects that achieves its remarkable feats, but as a specific being; like a frog, or a dog, or even a human being. I imagined the colony as an intelligent individual—one that encompasses all the discrete insects, much like our bodies encompass multitudes of cells, organisms, and organs. Our bodies are a cooperative collection of countless beasties, and so is an ant colony. So let me think of the colony as being a being. I’ll call her Ann.
Ann possesses essentially all the qualities of any intelligent creature. (I’m using the word intelligent here to mean the skillful accomplishment of complex tasks of living successfully—a much broader definition than just a measure of cerebral capability.) Ann was conceived at some point, was born, has thrived for 30 years (30!), and will someday perish—just like all critters. She forages for food, possesses a superb digestive system, defecates, and skillfully disposes of her wastes—often using it to fertilize her gardens. Ann’s immune system fights off disease and she successfully repels periodic invaders. As long as her multitudinous elements cooperate with one another and luck is with her, she lives a long and healthy life. Similarly, as long as our various organs work together and fortune smiles upon us, we stay healthy.
Ann inherently knows how to respond capably to varied circumstances. When food is plentiful she grows fat and robust. When provisions are lean she hunkers down and loses weight. Some of Ann’s components periodically sacrifice themselves to maintain her health—much as some of our white blood cells attack invasive bacteria and perish in the process. It’s all for one and one for all.
More on Ann’s qualities next time.
Wilson describes how the queen of his imagined community flew from her birth colony, became inseminated, and initiated her own colony. She is the vital center of the community, which Wilson calls a “superorganism.” I have written before about the phenomenon of emergent intelligence (1/28/09 and 5/7/09) and how a tight-knit group of creatures exhibits intelligence far beyond what any one of them possesses—a kind of superorganism.
As I pondered Wilson’s story—titled “Trailhead”—I found myself thinking of his superorganism of ants, not as a collection of cooperating insects that achieves its remarkable feats, but as a specific being; like a frog, or a dog, or even a human being. I imagined the colony as an intelligent individual—one that encompasses all the discrete insects, much like our bodies encompass multitudes of cells, organisms, and organs. Our bodies are a cooperative collection of countless beasties, and so is an ant colony. So let me think of the colony as being a being. I’ll call her Ann.
Ann possesses essentially all the qualities of any intelligent creature. (I’m using the word intelligent here to mean the skillful accomplishment of complex tasks of living successfully—a much broader definition than just a measure of cerebral capability.) Ann was conceived at some point, was born, has thrived for 30 years (30!), and will someday perish—just like all critters. She forages for food, possesses a superb digestive system, defecates, and skillfully disposes of her wastes—often using it to fertilize her gardens. Ann’s immune system fights off disease and she successfully repels periodic invaders. As long as her multitudinous elements cooperate with one another and luck is with her, she lives a long and healthy life. Similarly, as long as our various organs work together and fortune smiles upon us, we stay healthy.
Ann inherently knows how to respond capably to varied circumstances. When food is plentiful she grows fat and robust. When provisions are lean she hunkers down and loses weight. Some of Ann’s components periodically sacrifice themselves to maintain her health—much as some of our white blood cells attack invasive bacteria and perish in the process. It’s all for one and one for all.
More on Ann’s qualities next time.
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