Why Do We Like Certain Tunes or Understand Certain Senten...
Contrast two answers to the question, Why do we like certain tunes?
Because they have certain structural features.Because they resemble other tunes we like.
The first answer has to do with the laws and rules that make tunes pleasant. In language, we know some laws for sentences; that is, we know the forms sentences must have to be syntactically acceptable, if not the things they must have to make them sensible or even pleasant to the ear. As to melody, it seems that we only know som...
notes With Obtuse Spelling Rules, Pronunciation Becomes Reliant...
Since our current orthografy bears no real relation
to the present pronunciation, but is at best an imperfect attempt to represent that of the Elizabethan
period, English pronunciation has become almost entirely a matter of oral tradition as unsafe a gide in
regard to correctness in speech as it is in regard to
correctness in history. We learn to talk, and continue
to talk, entirely "by ear," and with the same tendency
to uncertainty and variation as do those who play music
by ear. The...
1 Understanding is Music
Sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid Strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is music wherever there is harmony, order and proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. notesKnowledge brings us harmony everywhere.
The Noble Person is Like an Echo
君子之學也，入乎耳，著乎心，布乎四體，形乎動靜。端而言，蝡而動，一可以為法則。小人之學也，入乎耳，出乎口；口耳之間，則四寸耳，曷足以美七尺之軀哉！古之學者為己，今之學者為人。君子之學也，以美其身；小人之學也，以為禽犢。故不問而告謂之傲，問一而告二謂之囋。傲、非也，囋、非也；君子如嚮矣。[Translated] The learning of the noble person enters his ear, is stored in his mind, spreads through his four limbs, and is made visible in his activity and his tranquility. In his smallest word, in his slightest movement, in everything, he may be taken as a model and a standard. The learning of the lesser man enters his ear and comes out his mouth. With only four inches between ear and mouth, how can he possess it long enough to beautify a seven-foot body In antiquity learning was carried on for the sake of one’s self; today learning is carried on for the sake of others.The learning of the noble person is for the sake of beautifying himself; the learning of the lesser man is offering bird and beast [to win attention from others]. Thus to proffer information when you have not been asked for it is called officiousness; to proffer information on two questions when you have only been asked about one is garrulity. Officiousness is to be condemned, so too is garrulity. The noble person is like an echo.
Decibel Scale is Logarithmic, Like the Richter Scale
In fact, a physics colleague, Mark Srednicki of U.C. Santa Barbara, brought to my attention a much greater gaffe in one episode, in which sound waves are used as a weapon against an orbiting ship. As if that weren't bad enough, the sound waves are said to reach “18 to the 12th power decibels.” What makes this particularly grate on the ear of a physicist is that the decibel scale is a logarithmic scale, like the Richter scale. This means that the number of decibels already represents a pow... notesKrauss describing a particularly egregious science-blunder in an episode of Star Trek.
The Telephone as Miracle
If you had come to me a hundred years ago, do you think I should have dreamed of the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it! I use it every day, I transact half my correspondence by means of it, but I don’t understand it. Thnk of that little stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating in your ear not only sounds, but words—not only words, but all the most delicate and elusive inflections and nuances of tone which separate one human voice from another! Is not that someth... notesCrookes uses one daily, but is fascinated by it.
Everyone Can Take an Idea
The words I am uttering penetrate your senses, so that every hearer holds them, yet withholds them from no other. Not held, the words could not inform. Withheld, no other could share them. Though my talk is, admittedly, broken up into words and syllables, yet you do not take in this portion or that, as when picking at your food. All of you hear all of it, though each takes all individually. I have no worry that, by giving all to one, the others are deprived. I hope, instead, that everyone wil...
1 It is not like taking food, where we must leave some for others. Ideas may be taken and done with as we please.
