09-25-10: Blindjim
Bigbucks
"..tree in the forrest...." Ridiculous.
What if there was a person there but he/she was deaf?
Absolutely there would be a noise. It doesn't matter if the noise or sound is noticed or not.... there's going to be a sound when trees fall in a forest.
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Sound is not the same as a pressure wave. Sound is a perception of the pressure wave. Without perception, there is no sound. If there are no living things in a forest, then a falling tree makes no sound. It may be old, but...
The magazine Scientific American corroborated the technical aspect of this question, while leaving out the philosophic side, a year later on Apr 5, 1884, on page 218 of their magazine when they asked the question slightly reworded, "If a tree were to fall on an uninhabited island, would there be any sound?" And gave a more technical answer, "Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."