Why there's a click

Unity Courses Talk
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#1

Two things:

  1. what is the “side” channel that Ben referred to in this video regarding how the sound relates to quantum mechanics?
  2. My thoughts on the abode matter: I think it actually has more to do with Fourier theory and the fact that a sound that has a sharp (think rectangular) cutoff excites infinite frequencies.

I can go into more detail but I wan’t to get in on the conversation in the “side channel” mentioned above.

#2

I’m not a physicist, but pretend to be one sometimes. But I know that the Fourier Transform is a good model of quantum phenomena, and of sound. That may be just a coincidence.

But in any case, a theorem about the Fourier Transform says that (assuming it accurately models sound and quantum mechanics, and as far as we know, it’s pretty close) there is a “fuzz” or error or uncertainty about both frequency and time, and the product of the two errors is always greater than Planck’s Constant.

Thus, if you know the frequency is 600hz plus or minus 0.5 hz, and you know the sound happens at time 10s plus or minus 0.1 second, 0.5 * 0.1 = 0.05 has to be greater than some constant, and you can’t have both values arbitrarily accurate. The same is true with “position” and “momentum” in quantum mechanics because the same formula models both. It may just be a coincidence, though.

#3

I’m not trying to refute that the uncertainty priciple is in play here. I just think that it’s not a very good or complete explanation for the audio pop (I think that’s what I was referring to, I haven’t actually opened udemy in a while; Sorry ben).

You’re right about the time-frequency product, by the way. I don’t remember the details but I’ll pull out my Fourier transform text when I’m home.

I’m not really sure what your background is or if you’d even be interested, but I’d be happy to talk about why I don’t think the uncertainty principle adequately explains the pop.

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