Abstract
WITH reference to the question whether ants produce sounds which are of such a pitch as to be inaudible to the human ear, I should like to make a suggestion which occurs to me, but which I have no means of carrying out practically. It is a well-known acoustical fact that two notes of high pitch sounding together produce a third whose vibrational number is the difference of the vibrational numbers of the two primary notes. If now we suppose a vibration at the rate of (say) 60,000 per second, another at the rate of 38,000 per second would give a difference note of 22,000 per second, which would be well within the range of audibility. If then we send up a note beyond the extreme limit of audibility, we shall be able to detect the presence of vibrations which exceed that of the note sent up by the highest number of vibrations of audible sound. It would be interesting to know if this has been attempted, and if the microphone can be applied to assist in the investigations.
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LEWIS, D. Sound-Producing Ants. Nature 25, 266 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/025266b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025266b0
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