The Ear

Sounds are vibrations of the air that travel in waves. These waves of vibrating air enter your ear through the opening of your ear, called the Auditory canal, and hit your eardrum, causing it to vibrate. Those vibrations are passed on through 3 ting bonesin your middle ear, called the Malleus, Incas, and stapes, to the cochlea, which is a snail-shaped tube filled with liquid. The waves are then converted into electrical impulses and send by the auditory nerve to the brain. The brain then interupts these signals as sounds. Sound waves have 2 parts: Frequency [pitch] and amplitude [loudness]. The closer together the waves are, the higher the pitch. The peaks of a sound wave from a whistle would be much closer than those from a bass drum. The bigger the waves are, the louder the sound. Sound waves from a loud sound are very tall, wereas a whisper produces very short waves. The differences in waves allow us to hear a large variety of sounds. Most sounds that we hear are not just 1 pitch but are some combination of pitches. Some peopple have dificulty hearing or cannot heaer at all. These people must learn to communicate diffrently than hearing people. Many deaf people communicate using sign language. Many also learn to read lips by watching the speakers lips, tongue, and htroat muscles. Generally, lip readers can read about half of the words and must guess the rest of them. Some people are born deaf; others have diseases that destroy their hearing. But many people become partially or completely deaf by being exposed to very load noises. We can portect our hearing by wearing earplugs or other ear portectors when we must be around loud noises. We can also try to avoid loud noises  that might damage our ears.

January 30th 2020