Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!husc6!rice!titan!phil From: phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Atlantis is home! Message-ID: <3305@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 22 May 89 16:55:59 GMT References: <272@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov> <9090001@hp-lsd.HP.COM> <4453@ttidca.TTI.COM> <862@m3.mfci.UUCP> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Reply-To: phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 21 In article <862@m3.mfci.UUCP> colwell@mfci.UUCP (Robert Colwell) writes: >... >Solving that for N in seconds, I get 0.27 seconds. My impression was that >the booms were obviously separated in time. I'd expect that people might >have a hard time distinguishing booms that were only 0.27 seconds apart. I'd expect that you're wrong. That's a quarter of a second, which is most certainly distinguishable (or for you computer types: 250 milliseconds). Being a former percussionist (you know, one of those guys that plays drums), I remember routinely playing notes on a snare drum that are a quarter of a second apart (four notes per second). Believe me, the notes were quite distinguishable. Or don't believe me. But if you don't believe me, do the following experiment: tap the countertop once a second (use your watch to time them). Double the rate, then double it again. Quite distinguishable. And in fact, about the same rate that the shuttle's booms are heard at. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University