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From: DCP@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: music harmony
Message-ID: <4796@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Sep-83 00:08:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.4796
Posted: Thu Sep  8 00:08:00 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Sep-83 23:23:37 EDT
Lines: 15

From:  David C. Plummer <DCP @ MIT-MC>

The human ear determines pitch by having cilia in the colea of
the inner ear that resonate.  It is a pretty specatular realtime
Fourier transformer.  Since each cilium(?) only detects pitch and
not phase, the ear cannot detect phase differences.  The typical
vibrations and waves physics experiment is to have two tone
generators whose phase difference can be adjusted.  The ear
cannot tell the difference.

An anology can be made with they eye.  The eye has roughly four
resonators; red, green, blue and black/white.  They have a much
broader response curve than the cilia of the ear, but since the
eye percieves a more detailed spatial image, such things as
intensity, contrast, and shading play a greater role.