The effect of humming on vision
A Dec 1967 article ("Effect of humming on vision") by William Rushton in the journal Nature reported that:
I'm sure that's interesting, but it's a response to Rushton's article published four months later that I find more interesting. A former member of the Air Training Corps described how it was possible, by humming (or rather, "purring"), to make your head vibrate such that, when looking at a spinning propeller, the propeller would seem to stop in mid-air. By increasing or decreasing the intensity of humming/purring, one could then determine in which direction the propeller was rotating.
I haven't tested this out to see if it works, but if any of you do have a chance to test it out, please report back with your results.
Humming causes the eye to vibrate and this can produce a strobo-scopic effect when a rotating black and white strobe disk is viewed in non-fluctuating light.
I'm sure that's interesting, but it's a response to Rushton's article published four months later that I find more interesting. A former member of the Air Training Corps described how it was possible, by humming (or rather, "purring"), to make your head vibrate such that, when looking at a spinning propeller, the propeller would seem to stop in mid-air. By increasing or decreasing the intensity of humming/purring, one could then determine in which direction the propeller was rotating.
I haven't tested this out to see if it works, but if any of you do have a chance to test it out, please report back with your results.
Nature - Apr 20, 1968
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Category: Science | Air Travel and Airlines | 1960s | Eyes and Vision