Great question from the kid

Post #343,230 by drook 6/2/11 9:35:13 PM Reply	Great question from the kid The 10-year-old was playing a little electronic 20 Questions game. (Which is freakishly accurate, by the way.) The word she chose was "microphone". Question the game asked was, "Does it make a sound?" She asked me. I'm stumped. And speaking of interesting questions, this one came up last night. If you have the air conditioner on, and you want it to be cooler, are you turning the A/C up or down? -- Drew
Post #343,232 by Another Scott 6/2/11 9:52:40 PM Reply	1) No. 2) Either is Ok - colloquialism.
Post #343,256 by folkert 6/3/11 8:41:32 AM Reply	Actually... Microphone are just very sensitive speakers that reverse the function creating a signal instead of reproducing it. If you were to apply a music program to the microphone and you didn't blow it up... it would reproduce the music from the voice coil. Though VERY ineffectively. Speaker and Microphones are damn near identical in design, except for the amount of noise they make or record. Either Microphones and Speakers are just voice-coils differing in size and sensitivity. Now conversely, you could take a speaker and use it as a Microphone, but it would be WOEFULLY in effective, smaller ones are better, but you'd still have to YELL at the top of your lungs to get any signal down the line.
Post #343,262 by Another Scott 6/3/11 9:55:54 AM Reply	Yeahbut, anything that moves "makes a sound". ;-)
Post #343,267 by malraux 6/3/11 3:04:17 PM Reply	Even in orbit...? Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #343,268 by Another Scott 6/3/11 3:47:59 PM Reply	Sure. A body in motion will compress the fluid in front of it, changing its density and generating noise. There is no perfect vacuum, so the same effect happens there. It's just very^googol weak in space. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #343,272 by mhuber 6/3/11 5:40:21 PM Reply	He's right, they are really the same thing just optimized differently. But then, I guess you could also say they are really just electric motors / generators (another pair of items that are the same thing optimized differently) that don't spin. But speakers/microphones are REALLY the same, and motors/generators are so much the same that you can easily test the fact that they are. When I was a little kid, Grandpa had me put a meter on the input leads to a little electric motor and spin the shaft. Sure enough, AC current. I miss the guy. He's been a blue ghost sitting behind me for decades, giving me a hint or encouragement when I needed it, but that's not the same. --------------------------------------- I think it's perfectly clear we're in the wrong band. (Tori Amos)
Post #343,277 by Another Scott 6/3/11 8:12:32 PM Reply	Yup. 'Tis true.

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