Ann: If I read you right, you are looking for a conversion factor to go from sound to light to see how they compare Given the range of audible sound for humans is 20,000 Hz (20 to 20,000Hz) and the range of visible light for humans is about 350 terahertz (450 to 750THz), then there would be no real meaningful comparison between audition and vision since the range of auditiion is miniscule compared with the range of vision. (It wouldn't be on the proverbial map)! Hope it helps answer your question. --Mike
"Donnelly, Michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Ann: Hope you got this answer already, but if so, perhaps I can put it succinctly: There is no answer to this question, as it is posed. Visible light is electromagnetic in nature, consisting of photons, each of which "vibrates" with a characteristic frequency. But the vibration of a photon is not the same vibration that produces sounds. Sound is created by literal vibrations, of surfaces moving back and forth while in contact with a fluid medium like air. The sound wave is in fact a spreading (longitudinal) wave of rapidly alternating pressures in the fluid medium, and is NOT electromagnetic in nature. Comparing sound waves and light waves is like apples and oranges: they're both waves/fruit, but nothing like each other after that. Your confusion of the two is not that silly, BTW. Way back when they were trying to figure out what light is composed of, they had already figured out that it consists of waves. They reasoned that for any wave (like sound) to move through space, it requires a fluid medium for transmission. Well, air is a fluid, so it makes sense that light could move thru air. But what about space? We now think of space as a vacuum, but back then they reasoned that outer space must have a fluid medium, which they speculatively called "the aether". This theory was dispelled when they realized that the wave nature of light didn't require a fluid medium for its transmission (because photons are particles with a "wavy nature", if you will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether Point yourself to this page for a longer (and better) explanation. -MD --- --------------------------------- Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos. ---
