Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?
If a tree falls in a forest, and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? This is an age-old debate that listener Richard and his family have been arguing about for years. Can CrowdScience settle it once and for all?
Caroline Steel speaks to experts in hearing, biology, philosophy, physics and sound design, which takes her to some unexpected places.
Professor Stefan Bleek is an expert in psychoacoustics who says that sounds only exist in our heads.
Dr Eleanor Knox and Dr Bryan Roberts are philosophers that make her question if anything exists outside our own perception. Professor Lilach Hadany wonders if it’s limited to humans and animals - could other plants hear the falling tree too?
And Mat Eric Hart is a sound designer who says that sound is subjective – it’s always tangled up with our own interpretations.
Things get truly weird as we delve into the strange implications of quantum physics. If there is such a thing as reality, doesn’t it change when we’re there to observe it? Does the tree even fall if we aren’t there?
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Anand Jagatia
(Image: Fallen Tree. Credit: Getty Images)
View all episodes
By BBC World Service
4.7
436436 ratings
If a tree falls in a forest, and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? This is an age-old debate that listener Richard and his family have been arguing about for years. Can CrowdScience settle it once and for all?
Caroline Steel speaks to experts in hearing, biology, philosophy, physics and sound design, which takes her to some unexpected places.
Professor Stefan Bleek is an expert in psychoacoustics who says that sounds only exist in our heads.
Dr Eleanor Knox and Dr Bryan Roberts are philosophers that make her question if anything exists outside our own perception. Professor Lilach Hadany wonders if it’s limited to humans and animals - could other plants hear the falling tree too?
And Mat Eric Hart is a sound designer who says that sound is subjective – it’s always tangled up with our own interpretations.
Things get truly weird as we delve into the strange implications of quantum physics. If there is such a thing as reality, doesn’t it change when we’re there to observe it? Does the tree even fall if we aren’t there?
Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Anand Jagatia
(Image: Fallen Tree. Credit: Getty Images)
More shows like CrowdScience
View all
More or Less
863 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
1,952 Listeners
The Naked Scientists Podcast
599 Listeners
Health Check
93 Listeners
The Food Chain
346 Listeners
Discovery
965 Listeners
BBC Inside Science
410 Listeners
Science Weekly
429 Listeners
Curious Cases
756 Listeners
The Inquiry
746 Listeners
The Life Scientific
227 Listeners
Science In Action
331 Listeners
Unexpected Elements
363 Listeners
People Fixing the World
240 Listeners
The World, the Universe and Us
116 Listeners
Manchester Arena Bomb: Stories of Hope
0 Listeners
When I Was 25
1 Listeners
QUB Talks 100 – The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences
0 Listeners
The Listening Project
6 Listeners
Descendants
13 Listeners
Що це було
4 Listeners
Siarad Moel: Podlediad Aled Hughes
1 Listeners
The Great Post Office Trial
36 Listeners
Би-Би-Си Кыргыз кызматы 25 жыл ободо
0 Listeners
Dad Boys with Dave Elliott and Shane Todd
3 Listeners