If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Imagine a vast forest full of tall looming trees, some of them hundreds of years old. |
| 0:48.0 | One of them, older than the rest, has been dead for a while, and in the wind it starts to give. |
| 0:58.0 | It begins to splinter and before long But here's the riddle. What does the falling tree sound like if you're not there to hear it? |
| 1:18.0 | Does it even make a sound at all? |
| 1:20.0 | It's a deceptively simple question that's puzzled great thinkers for centuries. |
| 1:27.1 | And now it's crowd science's turn to have a go. |
| 1:31.6 | And I'm going to be honest with you. This question takes us to some unexpected places. |
| 1:36.0 | What happens within our heads is private and subjective. |
| 1:40.0 | The classical question is really focused on the human perspective, which is missing some of the point. |
| 1:45.6 | And this kind of turns both physics and philosophy completely on its head. |
| 1:50.8 | I'm Caroline Steele, and we've been sent this question from Richard in Ohio |
| 1:54.8 | USA who wants us to settle a very long-running family argument. |
| 1:59.2 | It started with my parents many years ago that if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound and it's been going on for I must be 35 plus years this argument and no one yet has come up with a reasonable answer |
| 2:16.8 | so hopefully crowd science can do it. I mentioned to my parents the other day about this and it |
| 2:22.2 | started over again. You can almost start a |
| 2:26.2 | bar fight but you could walk into a pub and just say that and it's within 10 minutes there |
... |
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