How we hear

DEC 01, 1949

Chipping away at the barrier between the senses and the physical world are those scientists whose research is in psychophysics. Here the author traces what happens to a sound wave in the ear until it reaches the auditory nerve endings.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3066349

Francis M. Wiener

Ever since Einstein took his observers along on moving coordinate axes and left some behind to tell the tale of what happened within the stationary frame of reference, physics has changed in more than one respect. Physical science in general has begun to include research on these persistent observers and performers of experiments themselves. The workings of the human mechanism are currently under intense study by mathematicians and physicists, as well as by researchers in the life sciences.

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More about the authors

Francis M. Wiener, Bell Telephone Laboratories.

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