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Re: Need : ultra-miniature microphones

Subject: Re: Need : ultra-miniature microphones
From: "Dan Dugan" dandugan_1999
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 9:12 am ((PDT))
> My ongoing question is: What are the
> soundtracks for my videos? Nobody seems to have invented microphones
> with the capability of capturing the sound of, for example;  Rotifer
> cilia whirling, or collisions of Paramecia with Euglenoids, or the
> thrashings of a Nematode.

I'm sure those activities are making ripples, i.e. acoustic energy.

> Nature recordists work in too narrow of a slice of the sonic spectrum.

We are centered around, obviously, the band of human ear audiblity,
traditionally 20Hz to 20kHz, but we extend into subsonics for
elephants and sea mammals and into the ultrasonic for bats and insects.

> How about some innovations/inventions that expand the range into the
> realm of microbes, or, that translate microbial motions into the human
> range of hearing?

I wouldn't be surprised if the effects of microbial motions were, if
not in the human hearing frequency range, not far above it. The
problem is how to transduce said vibrations into a recording. A worthy
project, IMHO.

(Brainstorming now) the problem is mainly small size and low
amplitude. A microscopic microphone would have a microscopic output
level, on top of the problem of the signals being low level in the
first place. Perhaps a microscopic mic diaphragm could be monitored by
a light beam, then the modulations of the beam recorded.

-Dan Dugan






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