時差N小時:藍鯨是天生的歌唱家(上)

Did you know that blue whales sing their songsexactly on pitch, with unbelievable accuracy?Scientists at San Francisco State University analyzedover 4,000 blue whale songs off the coast ofCalifornia. They found that all the whales produced acertain call type at exactly the same pitch — 16.02Hertz. That’s about four octaves below middle C.Even more remarkable than the fact that all thewhales sing certain notes at the same pitch, is howperfectly on pitch they always are. From note to notethe whales only vary in pitch by half a percentdifference. By comparison, the difference between C and C-sharp is six percent.

你知道嗎?藍鯨唱歌時音高十分準確。舊金山大學的科學家們分析了加利福尼亞海岸線附近的4000個藍鯨的發(fā)聲音頻。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)藍鯨能以相同的音高(16.02赫茲)發(fā)出某種特定聲音。那正是C調(diào)下的八度音階。更值得注意的事實是所有的藍鯨都能用相同的音高唱歌，它們的音高總是完全相同。藍鯨通過改變百分之一的音高來改變音符。對比顯示，C調(diào)和C升調(diào)相差百分之六。

pitch n. 音高 accuracy n. 正確; 準確 octave n. 八度音階 remarkable adj.值得注意的