audio telescope?
"RichD" wrote in message
...
This may be a dumb question, I never studied acoustics....
If you look into the wrong end of a telescope,
everything looks reduced, 'anti-magnified'.
Is there anything analogous acoustically?
In both cases, the phenomena is described
by wave equations -
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Rich
This thread is bugging me enormously.
Because its certainly not a dumb question, and despite having an interest in
these subjects it has never occurred to me. And I don't know the answer.
I'm not sure the question has any meaning beyond imaging, and sound waves
aren't typically used for imaging.
You could in principle build sound lenses, but in practice mirrors or phased
arrays (as in sonar) would be more practical. You could artificially
simulate any optical effect in this manner, but as far as I know there is no
practical use for looking down the wrong end of a telescope even when using
light, let alone sound.
I know lots of places where light refraction and reflection is used in
nature, from eyes to fish scales, and lots of places where sound reflection
is used (every large animal's ear, bats etc), but none where sound
refraction is used.
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