WEBVTT - What are the Strangest, Craziest Sounds in the Universe? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.440 Guess what mango? What's that? Will? So I was looking 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:04.480 back at some stories that i'd booked Mark from this 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.160 year and there was this one, this really good one 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.520 about a bagpiper, and I felt like I needed to 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:12.200 share it with you. This already sounds awful, I know, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.280 but all right. So this is from Glasgow and it's 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.040 late in the night and people are on a commuter train. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:18.880 They're trying to get home from the pub or the 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.119 office or wherever, and this guy just steps onto the 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.639 car and starts wailing away on his bagpipes. Can you 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.480 imagine this? I mean they sound like one thing from 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.280 a distance, but up close. So he's been a partying 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.160 mood and he genuinely wants to keep the party going, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.640 but you know, using his bagpipes. So he starts playing 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:41.640 a rousing rendition of Yellow Submarine. I mean, I guess 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.960 that's sort of upbeat. But does everyone get into it? No, 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.400 just the opposite. So the chorus comes around and you 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.800 think people are going to start breaking out singing, and 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.480 then everyone just keeps staring at him in total anchor. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.560 It's pretty amazing, and the comments were brutal. One person 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.120 said he'd rather opt for water boarding, then hear that 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.399 noise again. But you know, remembering this Piper's tale made 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.400 me wonder, what are some of the most unusual sounds 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.440 in history? What did the Big Bang sound like? Or 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.560 taranno sources roar and what are some sounds worth blocking out? 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.400 And that's what today's episode is all about. Let's dive 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:41.200 in Heither podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.080 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.400 friend man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.400 the soundproof glass singing the hit song from The Bodyguard, 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.960 a friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I really wish you 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.360 could hear it because Tristan sings like an angel, and 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.480 you know, every time I hear that song, I will 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.640 Always love You You tear up right no. But every 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:01.320 time I heard I think about the fact that Saddam 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.000 Hussein used it as his campaign song, like it's just 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:05.880 so ridiculous to me. I know, that's one of my 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.240 favorite facts of all time. So I did look it 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.880 up again recently because I wanted to see the ads again, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.200 and the song he used was actually an Arabic cover 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.040 by a pop star from Syria, so still still the 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:21.560 same emotional impact, but slightly different. Well, I've already gotten 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.320 his off track, or I guess Tristan's gotten his off track. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.960 But uh, well, I I know where episodes all over 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.799 the place. So today we're covering some of the strangest, loudest, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.040 and most irritating sounds in history. Where do you want 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:33.639 to start? I think we should go back to the beginning. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.480 So I think we should start with the actual earliest 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.239 sound in the universe. What do you think? Yeah, I 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.000 mean it sounds a little theoretical or theological, I guess. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.840 And you know, in Hinduism there's that sound of home 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.320 that's supposed to be like the beginning, middle, and end 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.000 of time. Sound like I mean you heard in yoga 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.080 classes too. But in Christianity, I'm guessing it's like when 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.840 God flipped the light switch? Is that right? Well, before 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.600 there was light, I think there was actually the sound 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.320 of a slashing if I remember correctly, you know, since 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.720 there's water and earth referenced than that darkness. But I 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.440 was actually taking more of a scientific slant here. I 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.080 was talking about the earliest sounds in the universe, as in, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.919 you know, the big Bang. Yeah, that makes more sense. 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.320 Although the word big bang already seems descriptive, right, I'm 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.040 guessing it just sounds like a massive crash. Well that's 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.040 what I thought too, and I think most people would assume. 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.000 But the truth is actually weirder than that. So there's 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.400 a physicist from the University of Washington. His name is 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.200 John Kramer, and back in two thousand one, he wrote 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.880 this article that described the sound of the Big Bang. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.440 You know, the physics here is above my pay grade, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.640 but according to the Atlantic article quote, during the first 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.040 one hundred to seven hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.240 the universe was far denser than the air on Earth, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.360 which means that the sound waves could actually move through it. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.320 So he published this piece about how the universe kept 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.840 ringing in the slow, low frequency way until the universe 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.480 grew to you know, these massive proportions and it stopped 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.040 making the hump, and the sound would have been too 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.560 low frequency for human years to pick up on. But 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:05.920 then a couple of years later, this was in two 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.720 thousand three, I think, a mom who was helping her 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.200 eleven year old with a fifth grade project asked if 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.720 there's a recording of it. Anywhere, and when Kramer responded no, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.920 he then decided to synthesize it for them. I mean, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.360 that's awesome that we know what the Big Bang sounds 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.880 like because of a fifth grader. And it's also crazy 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.920 to me that the universe is what like fourteen billion 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.919 years old and we have indications of what it actually 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.840 sounded like from the start. I mean, that's insane. But 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.479 what's it actually sound like? Well, so, like you, I 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:39.080 assumed the Big Bang was gonna sound terrifically big or powerful, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.119 but as our friend Lucas Riley puts it, it sounds 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:46.280 a little bit more like a motorcycle fart. I vote 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.120 don't know what that means. And also it seems gross. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.279 But wouldn't it sound like do you? Well? Kramer has 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.240 a few versions up on his site and they're worth 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.640 checking out, and they ranged from twenty seconds to even 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.359 eight minutes long, and they're all pretty similar. So to me, 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.960 it sounded somewhere between like a video game character dying 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.479 or like an old school computer powering down or something 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.479 like that. If I don't know if that makes any sense, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.280 or or just maybe we'll go with motorcycle fire. All 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.720 these noises I don't know what they mean, but you 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.160 do have a link to the sound, right, So I mean, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.719 I think we should put a link of it to Facebook, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:22.840 and then we can ask listeners to describe it, and 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.159 we'll send teachers to like the funniest three descriptions. Sound 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.000 good to you, sounds good to me. But now I'm curious, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.880 how did Kramer make this sound for human years? Like 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.160 I think he said it was too low frequency for 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:35.960 us to actually be able to hear. Well, that's a 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.240 good question. So from the way I understand it, he 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.080 used data from satellites and and pulled something called a 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.520 cosmic microwave background. The site futurity dot org refers to 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.000 it as a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang, and 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.480 then he made some calculations and pulled the data into 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.160 a sound file. But you know, to create something we 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.360 could hear, Kramer had to boost a frequency a hundred 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.000 septillion times. You know how big that is. That's one 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.800 followed by twenty nine zero. And so when he played 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:06.839 it in his office for the first time, his sheep 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.520 dogs ran in and started how like they were not 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:14.719 fans of this. Maybe their creationists. I love that, but 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.200 it reminds me of when I started playing the violin 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.720 in third grade and I was so awful, but when 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.000 I screeched and played, my puff would just run and 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.800 face me. And that's just howl along. And I think 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.040 both my family and my dog were so relieved when 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.960 I finally quit. About it sounds familiar, but I love 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.800 this idea of cataloging sounds. And we've got the Big 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.039 Bang on file now, which is awesome. And there's actually 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.040 a guy who's gone around New Jersey catalog and all 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.080 the sounds of New Jersey for future generations. This just 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.359 sounds like a joke. That's true. Yeah, it's real. His 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.480 name's are Bernie wagon Blast. That's just a joke, right, 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.159 that's also true, Okay, But he's visiting every county trying 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.120 to capture something that feels rare about each place. So 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.520 he'll like tape the rumble of the King dakr roller coasters. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.280 It's going up for the sound inside this old covered bridge, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.839 or even like the music of ice skates cutting and 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.920 gliding across the ice and an old historic rink. Yeah, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.840 it's really beautiful and poetic, and it's like a sound 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.200 library of New Jersey. But there's this even more ambitious 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:17.840 project I want to talk about, and it's called The 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.600 Sonic Wonders of the World. It's from this British acoustic 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.880 engineer named Trevor Cox, and it's kind of like these 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.360 beautiful sonic destinations that are worth visiting. It sounds like 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:29.800 a lot of fun. So so what all is on 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:31.920 the list? Well, one of the first things I saw 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.320 was the singing sands in California in the Mojave Desert. So, 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.040 according to CNN, when you slide down the sand on 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.280 your backside, the unusual sand makes a quote deep parping 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:48.640 sound resembling propeller aircraft or a susophone accident. Yeah, Cox 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.760 calls it more of a weird droning. So does this 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:52.600 have to do with like the shape of the sand 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.040 or the size of the sand? Yeah, that's right, So 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:56.720 it has to do both with the shape of the 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.520 dune and the size of the sand grains. Apparently that's 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.840 pretty cool, all right. So what else does he talk about? Well, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.440 some of his men made sounds like there's some acoustic wonders. 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.120 There's this chirping Mayan pyramid where when you clap your 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.720 hands it echoes back with the sound of the sacred 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.720 Mayan bird. It's pretty awesome and it was used for 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.200 religious ceremonies. But there's also a place in Carnatica, India 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.680 where I've actually been. It's called gold Gum Buzz, and 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.680 uh there's this massive whispering gallery. You can speak into 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:26.840 a column on one side and hear the message on 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.960 the other side, and if you speak in a different part, 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.800 the dome kind of echoes the sounds over and over. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.040 And the way it was described in the article was 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.800 it's almost like a nineteen sixties horror flick where they're 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.160 all these like layered, sampled sounds just echoing over each other. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.520 But it's actually way less terrifying and more like, uh, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:47.559 I don't know, like the open swim at your YMC. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.480 That's a little different. Yeah, But my favorite thing he 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.040 talks about is the musical road in California, which has 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.480 the William Tell and Lone Ranger song like grooved into 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.960 the pavement, and as Cox and Cena put it, it 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.920 is a very bad rendition of the William Tell overture, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.400 like someone gargling with water in an adjacent room. But 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.640 it does make you laugh. Wow, I mean, I do 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.800 love the musical highways and runways. I know we covered 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.840 in a previous episode the one at Disney. You know 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.079 where they they when the when the plane goes over 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:18.839 to you hear when you wish upon a star. I 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.640 guess it says they land, I think. But now that 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.040 we've covered one sound no one has heard and a 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.880 bunch of sounds you travel to hear, I think we 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.680 should probably cover some terrible sounds that nobody wants to hear. 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:33.800 So I'm a little hesitant about what that means, but 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.800 I'll go with it. But let's pause for a quick break. First, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.680 welcome back to Part time Genius. So before the break, 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.800 you were teasing that we get into some awful sounds. Well, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.280 I found this list from two thousand seven and it's 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.280 of the worst sounds in the world. Okay, so two 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.360 thousand seven. I'm gonna put myself back in the mindset 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.240 of when Ratatoui was in theaters and that show Chuck 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.800 was on the air. Chuck, I'm not sure you have 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.280 to think that deeply about it. But so this is 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.880 a British list, So most of the sounds are pretty 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.280 similar as the ones that we might think of here 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.080 and there are things like feedback from a microphone or 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.120 crying babies. And I guess maybe they knew about your 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.280 violin playing you were talking about, because poorly played violin 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.240 is actually number six on the list here. But what 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.880 about something like nails on a chalkboard. Honestly, just saying 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.200 that phrase gives me the shivers. It makes me uncomfortable. 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.679 You know. Surprisingly that wasn't on there. I mean, I 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.320 guess the closest thing to that they have here. Let's 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.480 see the train scraping on the track. So that's on there. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.520 But there are a few on here that I actually 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.280 didn't see, now, okay, or this feels a little bit 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.280 like British family few. But I'm still gonna make you 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.800 take a guess. So what are some of the other 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.239 top ten worst sounds in the world in England specifically? 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.320 I think anyway, Um, I don't know. I have to 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.640 say throwing up is probably top of the list. Nicely 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.520 done survey says that's actually number one. Didn't expecting to 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.240 nail that, so, I mean, vomiting is definitely a sound 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.920 people would love to block out. But there are others 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.640 on here that are pretty hilarious. So Squeaky Seesaw comes 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.520 in at number five, and I think that's that annoying 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.320 of the noise right above violin. It's on there. Whoopee 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.679 cushion comes in at number seven. I don't know what 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.520 makes people think about these things. Number eight is an 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.199 argument from a soap opera, is so specific it is. Well. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.240 The funniest thing on the list, though, is number ten, 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:42.480 Tasmanian devil. I mean that makes no sense. How did 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.360 that many people in England even know what a Tasmanian 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.600 devil sounds like? All right, well, here's the strange thing though, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.280 I mean, I had no idea you were going to 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.679 bring up Trevor Cox earlier. He's the guy that's been 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.160 collecting sounds from around the world, but oddly enough he's 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:59.280 also responsible for this survey. Basically, he and some colleagues 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.600 took thirty or repellent sounds and they played them for 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:04.840 a group of men and women. And part of the 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:06.760 reason he did this is that Cox has been trying 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.680 to figure out what drives such strong emotions and reactions, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.560 you know, the various sounds, and also the engineers are 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:15.160 trying to find out if there are ways to re 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.440 engineer these sounds to be less offensive, I guess, So 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.760 do they find out anything interesting? Well, there were some 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.560 differences in gender. You know, women, for instance, tended to 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.120 find a baby's crying a little less jarring than men. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.440 But I think what's interesting is how some of the 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.160 things you think would annoy people were far lower on 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.280 the list. Alan kats and things like snoring were far 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.160 less annoying to most people than Tasmanian Devil's snoring ranked 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.160 number twenty six on the list. That's such an annoying sound. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.199 I mean, you'd obviously take snoring over the sound of 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.480 someone vomiting. But this idea of re engineering sounds is 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.760 pretty interesting. So what does that mean exactly? Well, I 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.520 don't know what Cox is thinking about exactly, but actually 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.240 there is this ignoble study about nails and chalkboards. So 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.480 these scientists isolated the high pitch frequencies as well as 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.280 the middle and low frequencies, and then they tried to 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.520 figure out what made people cringe, and they realized it's 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.120 actually not the high frequencies, but actually the middle ones 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:12.960 that cause the hair to go up on your neck. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.599 So you know, in a movie, taking out or reducing 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.040 that middle frequency would be much easier to watch. All right, 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.640 But two last quick discoveries about this before we move on. 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.760 So number one, if you're given warning about someone scraping 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.160 a chalkboard before you do it, you actually react way, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.679 way worse than if you just hear the sound. That's 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.560 actually pretty funny because I heard that behavioral economist Dan 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.600 Ry Ellie talk about removing bandages and how if someone 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.880 tells you or warns you that they're going to do 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.040 it and then gently pulls the bandages off your body, 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.000 you've got this higher tolerance for pain versus the idea 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:46.920 of just ripping them off and getting it over with. 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.959 And it's fine to think about what your mind can 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.360 and can't handle knowing in advance. That's pretty interesting. Well, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.160 here here's the other thing I was gonna say. So 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.320 scientists have wondered whether our aversion to that nails on 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.359 a chalkboard sound is actually it's just the same frequency 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.439 as some primate warning calls. That's crazy. So primate warnings 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.000 and nails on the chalkboard are actually emitted at the 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.280 same frequency. Yeah, that's right, So it might accidentally be 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.280 triggering this danger instinct that's in all of us. Well, 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.440 I'm certainly glad that part of the show is over, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.640 and I know we want to talk about earworms too, 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:21.480 which are the songs that get stuck in your head. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.560 But before we do that, how about we have a 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.080 little palate cleanser of cute facts. Al right, sure, So 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.560 what do you have for us? So? Did you know 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.160 that baby turtles all hatch at the same time because 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.800 they're actually communicating through their eggshells. Oh that's like synchronized hatching. 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.480 That that is pretty cute. Good job, ango, Yeah, it 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.640 gives them a better chance to survival. And actually, I've 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.040 got another one for you. So did you know that 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.000 scientists at Georgia Tech have created software for barns and 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.800 henhouses that tries to create happier chickens. It does this 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.920 all by listening to their clucks and squawks. Apparently you 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.720 can tell whether a chicken is stressed, or too cold, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.240 or a whole host of other things by listening to 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.000 a group's cluck king. And this smart barn software actually 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.880 listens to the sound feed of chickens and adjust things 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.960 like the lighting or temperature or whatever makes chickens a 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.920 little happier in their coupes. Apparently it makes for more 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.120 eggs and plumper chickens. That's pretty crazy, all right, Well, 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.200 why don't we move from eggs to earworms? And as 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.000 you know, earworms are those catchy songs and refrains that 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.480 gets stuck in your head. And sometimes they're there for 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.800 a few hours. Sometimes honestly for me, it feels like 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.000 they'll stay there for days and days. But the founding 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.080 director of the Music, Mind and Brain program at Goldsmiths 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.440 in London, her name is Lauren Smith. Well she's been 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.480 studying this phenomenon since two thousand nine, but earworms feel 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.440 like to been around for longer than that, right, Well, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.520 the phenomenon is a whole lot older. And there's a 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.240 great New Yorker piece by Maria Knakova. You know, we 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.080 actually had her on the program before. Oh yeah, she 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.960 was so great. She did that wonderful podcast The Griffin. Yeah, 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.000 it was a really interesting what do But in this 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:57.800 piece specifically, she references this Russian musical prodigy named Nicholas Lanimski, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.320 and he wrote a book in the nineteen is all 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.120 about creating musical patterns that quote hooked the mind and 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.440 force mimicry and repetition, And I don't know if he's 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.360 exactly talking about earworms here, but he is talking about 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.240 catchy music, and Frank Zappa and John Coltrane, among others, 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.160 were influenced by Slenemski's work. So the term earworm then 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.960 gets coined back in the nineteen seventies and this happens 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.840 in Germany. But even that has some old roots kind 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.160 of Covid writes about the old folk music that was 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.440 known to stick in your crawl, like quote a piper's maggot. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.120 Exactly what that means, but it sounds gross. Which is 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.800 all to say that earworms have a long history, but 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.280 it was only with Lawrence Smith in two thousand nine 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.760 that they really studied what makes an earworm. So what 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:44.920 does make a earworm? Well, part of it has to 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.960 do with hearing a song a few times, but another 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.920 part is that the song itself normally has notes that 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.280 are very close together. So you're talking about like musical 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.920 intervals here. Yeah, that's right, a lot of half steps 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.120 or whole steps between a lot of the notes. But 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.400 also you know the notes getting held for a long 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.920 time and then it repeats. So if you're thinking about 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.040 something like you know the White Stripes seven Nation Army 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.000 where the song is repeating that like bum bump bump bump, 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.040 bum bomp, and that those notes are all right there 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.520 next to each other on the keyboard. I mean, that's 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.040 both fascinating and terrifying to me, that like Justin Bieber 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.879 or Fifth Harmonies, songwriters or whoever know exactly what makes 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:27.879 a song stick in our heads? Why is that terrifying? 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.600 Things wonderful because I don't need any more than my head, 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.600 They're already there. But do you have any insight on 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.880 why songs catch or like why they pop up when 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.680 we don't expect them to. Well, we don't know for sure, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.720 but there is one hypothesis that's pretty interesting, and it's 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.480 the idea that people either get an earworm because it 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.320 matches their mental state or because it's helping you change 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.959 your mental state. So, as this article points out, if 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.000 you're feeling super sluggish, you might hear a song that 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.880 revs you up, or alternately, you know one that can 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.480 calm you down if the situation demands it. And that's 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.400 amazing that, like your body is your mind's regulating your body. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.439 That right, So one last question on this before we 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.600 move on? How do you get rid of them? Like 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.560 I I heard the best way was to just sing 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.639 yourself another catchy song. But that seems like a terrible 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.359 cure to me. Well, distracting yourself is one way, but 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.800 the better way, according to researchers, is just to belt 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.359 the song out. Like, if you sing it, your mind 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.440 gets over it, or at least gets closer to being 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.600 over it, and then you can actually move on. Crazy. Well, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:31.359 I want to talk about some of the more weird 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.960 funny sounds, but before we do, let's go to a break. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.680 Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now we're talking about 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.000 some of the biggest, strangest and most irritating sounds in 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.920 the universe and basically a whole lot of noise you'd 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.120 love to block out and listeners what Well, we did 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.119 mention this in the episode description. Both this episode and 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:03.720 the one we did a few episodes back on the 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.399 art of trash talking were made possible by beats by 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.000 Dre and their noise canceling headphones. And just for the record, 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.600 Dr Dre did not personally collaborate or participate in this episode, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.760 but we do look forward to working with him in 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.679 the future. Right of course. Well some ango before we 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.720 get back to it. You wanted to talk a little 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.320 bit about sound in history, right, Yeah. I was reading 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.520 this story at the huffing In post by David Hendy 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.800 about the history of sound and Nolan pointed it to me. 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.600 But it's filled with all sorts of great stories, and 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.480 one of them is like how medicine changed when stethoscopes 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.000 were invented. So doctors have been listening to the body 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.639 for clues forever, you know, heartbeats and paulse and whatever, 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.159 but suddenly there were all these gurgles and rattles and 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.479 hisses that they could now hear, and there was this 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.560 new level of sophistication, and it made the body so 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.639 much more wondrous and opened up all these new mysteries 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.800 and ideas through advances and sound. That's pretty cool. So 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:58.760 what else, Well, there was a bit on how the 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.840 early phonographs and g the phones weren't really exciting to 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.480 people because of their ability to play music. It was 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.480 really more because they were thought of as these recording devices, 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:09.720 like there were a way that you could preserve your 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.040 dying uncle's voice and his words of wisdom for posterity. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.359 Instead of I don't know, just like a way of 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.760 playing your Power of Love, best of the eighties power 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.080 ballads album. So the article had these interesting things I 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.320