Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mouton.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!houxz!houxm!ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!mwg From: mwg@mouton.UUCP Newsgroups: net.music.classical Subject: Re: psychoacoustics Message-ID: <86@mouton.UUCP> Date: Thu, 21-Jun-84 09:24:12 EDT Article-I.D.: mouton.86 Posted: Thu Jun 21 09:24:12 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 07:26:45 EDT References: <422@hou5g.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 11 ++ I think the association of 'high' with pitches of faster oscillation is similar to why we connect 'high' (as in height) with large numbers (cost, loudness, percentage etc). They are all continua which are bounded on the 'low' side (usually by zero (ie the 'ground')), and unbounded on the 'high' side (the sky's the limit). However, this still leaves unanswered the question of how our intuition knows that zero is the lowest frequency, if we can only hear to 20 Hz, and that pitches extend infinitely beyond our 20 kHz limit, in theory. (In practice you probably get stopped by quantum thermodynamics or something.