I recently watched a very cool documentary, 32 Sounds, which was all about sound: how we experience it; what it is; its power in our lives; how it is the first of our senses to develop in the womb etc. In the film, a key quote is attributed to polymath and so-called “Father of the computer” Charles Babbage:
“The air itself is one vast library, whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.”
This quote reflects Babbage’s theory that all sounds ever produced are still present in the air, albeit at frequencies too low for humans to perceive without a special receiver.
I found this very profound to consider that every sound EVER MADE on this planet is still happening right this very second, just at frequencies we cannot hear: every baby gurgle (estimated at 117 billion souls throughout history); every declaration of love; every Beethoven sonata performed; every I Hate You flung at a slamming door; every note of birdsong; volcanic explosion; dinosaur roar; car backfire; and dreaded leaf blower. From two friends sharing a laugh back in the 5th century, all the way to the sound of a drone bomb exploding a city street yesterday, becomes a vibration that exists forever, it just gets quieter and quieter and quieter and quieter. Even the sounds of my fingers typing along this keyboard writing this very sentence. It blew my mindhole.
So that got me visualizing these vibrations as if they were coloured—visible to the human eye—and how that would look streaked across the globe. It also made me imagine the physical weight of all those vibrations in our atmosphere. Google tells me that sound waves are not traditionally considered to have mass, but that recent research suggests they do carry a tiny amount of mass as they travel. This mass is not the same as the mass of matter; rather, it’s related to the energy and momentum carried by the sound wave. It’s a subtle effect, but it means that sound waves can be influenced by gravity and can, in turn, generate a weak gravitational field. Therefore, we are surrounded, bound, held in, under and around sound at all times during our life here on earth.
And the poet in me thinks this must be the foundational juice for something inexplicable like déjà vu, which historically has been rationalized as a miscommunication between different parts of the brain responsible for memory and perception, leading to a false sense of familiarity. What if instead, we are “hearing” a frequency that either we’ve made before, or that someone else has made—like a simultaneous reverberation or perhaps a harmonic in music. That quiet presence of something we’ve known before might be us resonating with (hearing) a frequency that in that moment is only audible to us. I don’t know… I think I’m onto something here and just need a soulful scientist to talk this through with me.
I also feel like this is a reason why music packs such an emotional punch (a topic I have grappled with numerous times before as recounted in this glisk* newsletter titled bending time) because the music is physically resonating with all these other sound waves that are flowing all around us. Music is literally making music with all the other sounds that have been made so far on this planet. Mind blown. Anyway, that’s the latest what if? I’ve been contemplating as I lay awake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling. Give me a call if you want to stay up late and blow smoke rings into the sky and discuss further.
