Page:John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh The theory of sound (1877).pdf/19



1. THE sensation of sound is a thing sui generis, not comparable with any of our other sensations. No one can express the relation between a sound and a colour or a smell. Directly or indirectly, all questions connected with this subject must come for decision to the ear, as the organ of hearing; and from it there can be no appeal. But we are not therefore to infer that all acoustical investigations are conducted with the unassisted ear. When once we have discovered the physical phenomena which constitute the foundation of sound, our explorations are in great measure transferred to another field lying within the dominion of the principles of Mechanics. Important laws are in this way arrived at, to which the sensations of the ear cannot but conform.

2. Very cursory observation often suffices to shew that sounding bodies are in a state of vibration, and that the phenomena of sound and vibration are closely connected. When a vibrating bell or string is touched by the finger, the sound ceases at the same moment that the vibration is damped. But, in order to affect the sense of hearing, it is not enough to have a vibrating instrument; there must also be an uninterrupted communication between the instrument and the ear. A bell rung in vacuo, with proper precautions to prevent the communication of motion, remains inaudible. In the air of the atmosphere, however, sounds have a universal vehicle, capable of conveying them without break from the most variously constituted sources to the recesses of the ear.

3. The passage of sound is not instantaneous. When a gun is fired at a distance, a very perceptible interval separates the