June 6, 2008 at 8:09 AM
If a violinist plays in a forest and no one hears, does she make a sound?I hope bears can't hear you!!...In that case however none could hear you screaming!!
2. Yes. I suppose violinists are not deaf, so "she" can hear her own playing.
(Sometimes I wonder if some of my students are in fact deaf to their own playing and my comments as well.)
Tobias
Why do you think the violinist has to go into the forest to play?
So, don't think we can get all philosophical about this one... ;-)
However, one thing I would love to know from any scientific types here is - if a violinist went to the Moon, got out the spacecraft with his/her violin and bow and started to play - would they make a sound? No air to transmit sound waves on the moon... so I am assuming you'd hear nothing?
Other thing is, if you took a violin out of a spacecraft onto the Moon's surface, or indeed on a space-walk from the ISS, would it survive, or would it suffer a horrid fate?
"If a violinist plays in the forest, and no one hears, does she make union scale? "
Is that Major or minor scale……pay?
The varnish on the violin would outgas quickly, the bow hairs would snap from the pressure of being played while frozen, and any mosture left in the violin wood would freeze and rupture wooden tubules. The violin would remain viable longer than the violinist, whose exposure to vacuum and near absolute zero temps (assuming she's in shadow) would render her into a dessicated wreck in a short while. Unconsciousness would occur in seconds, mercifully enough.
I think that's the rough scenario.
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