[Aztlan] Plaster and Echoes

Tue Sep 9 08:35:06 CDT 2008

Evan,

But how far was your son from the stairs, and from the 9 platforms?  I think with the 9 walls and the 91 stairs, as long as both groups have vertical or near-vertical surfaces, and the clapping individual is far enough back from the structure, there will be some echo or response from either stairs or walls, whether you get a chirp, or a series of shortly spaced clap responses.

For the nine walls, there is probably a "sweet spot" distance required to get the chirp.  Too close, and you can't get the echo except off the first tier, and that may be too small of a time lapse to differentiate from the clap.

The stairs may work even close up, but for the walls to work, there needs to be a certain distance between the clapping individual and the pyramid.  It's a function of wall height and individual stair height.

I agree, there needs to be a lot more testing.  It may be that the stairs are for close-up clapping, and the 9 walls are for more distant.  I don't think the stairs will return a snake rattle echo (from a single hard loud rattle shake) like the 9 walls will.

Thanks for the message.

Paul

--- On Mon, 9/8/08, EJ Albright <vanjayal at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: EJ Albright <vanjayal at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Plaster and Echoes
> To: troemner at yahoo.com, "David Lubman" <dlubman at ix.netcom.com>, "D. Clark Wernecke" <CWernecke at compuserve.com>, "Greg Sandor" <gregory_sandor at hotmail.com>
> Cc: "Aztlan" <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>, "D. Clark Wernecke" <102402.2332 at compuserve.com>
> Date: Monday, September 8, 2008, 10:31 PM
> The sound is produced by the stairs. Last fall, my
> 17-year-old son performed an experiment at El Castillo to
> determine where the echo originated. If you stand directly
> in front of the staircase and clap, you hear the chirping
> echo. If you stand at a 30-degree angle from the stairway,
> directly in front of the nine platforms, and you clap, you
> hear nothing. However, someone else standing at a 30-degree
> angle on the opposite side of the staircase hears the
> chirping echo.
> 
> He continued to experiment until he was able to determine
> with some certainty that the echo was originating from the
> staircase.
> 
> I'm not sure what grade his physics teacher gave him,
> but I was impressed.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> -- Evan J. Albright
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Paul Troemner <troemner at yahoo.com>
> To: David Lubman <dlubman at ix.netcom.com>; D. Clark
> Wernecke <CWernecke at compuserve.com>; Greg Sandor
> <gregory_sandor at hotmail.com>
> Cc: Aztlan <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>; D. Clark
> Wernecke <102402.2332 at compuserve.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 8, 2008 11:23:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Plaster and Echoes
> 
> > Can someone please describe how the "chirp"
> is
> > produced?
> 
> Greg,
> This is my theory (there are other theories out there):
> 
> There are 10 near-vertical walls on the structure:  9 for
> the steps in the pyramid, and one at the building on top. 
> The chirp is made of 10 echos of the clap, each just
> slightly delayed from the previous echo, and slightly weaker
> (an increase of distance and reflecting angle and a decrease
> in reflective wall area as you go up the pyramid).
> 
> David Lubman says the chirp is 0.2 seconds long (I had
> guessed it was half second, but he had measured it).  I
> would guess the 10 echoes are compressed into that 0.2
> seconds, which gives it a "grainier" sound than
> the Quetzal chirp (10 vibrations instead of 400 or some
> other number).  David has theorized that it is the stairs
> causing the chirp, but the near-vertical surface area of the
> stairs is smaller than the near-vertical surface area of the
> pyramid steps (I'll refer to stairs as the stone
> staircase, and steps as the 9 steps of the pyramid).  The 91
> stairs may contribute part of the sound, but with smaller
> echoes closer together.
> 
> >From
> http://www.world-mysteries.com/chichen_kukulcan.htm#Statistics
> 
> The stairs' vertical area 8.85 m x 24 m, or 212 meters
> squared, is less than the pyramid steps' vertical area
> 686 meters squared (plus the building on top, 13.42 m x 6 m
> high on narrower side, or an additional 81 meters squared,
> for 767 meters squared total).
> 
> I think the stairs contribute about 1/4 of the echo effect,
> and the pyramid steps the other 3/4.  The pyramid steps,
> contributing the most, would be more likely to return a
> snake rattle sound from a single shake of a rattle, but this
> theory for the snake rattle has not been tested.  Another
> test would be to point a parabolic microphone at the one
> location at a time (5th step or 25th stair, etc.) on the
> pyramid during the clap and response.
> 
> I think that even if we do find out how the chirp is
> generated by the structure, and if we believe it was
> intended by the builders, how did they come up with the
> design?  Was it theoretical accoustic design (using the
> speed of sound, math, and so forth), empirical accoustic
> design (trial and error through earlier structures), or a
> combination of both?  Has anyone observed the angle a
> rattlesnake makes when shaking its tail?  Are the 10 cycles
> representative of 10 rattles on a snake, with the building
> on top representing the initial bead of the snake?  Are the
> various stepped pyramids in Palenque, Copan, and elsewhere
> earlier prototypes of the chirping design?
> 
> Continuing with the idea that there are potentially light
> and sound shows from this structure, we are aware of the
> snake light show, the quetzal sound show, and potentially a
> snake sound show.  That leaves a quetzal light show as yet
> undiscovered?  Why is there a rectangular building (instead
> of square) on top of a nearly square pyramid?
> 
> I thought I heard that the unrestored faces of the pyramid
> have been reported to return a similar "chirp" as
> the restored face of the pyramid.  If the stones or debris
> on the unrestored faces have at least some vertical surfaces
> or near-vertical surfaces, a response of some sort will be
> generated, but probably not as distinct as the 10-cycle echo
> of the restored face, and will scatter the single rattle too
> much to make a snake rattle return.
> 
> Paul Troemner
> 
> --- On Sat, 9/6/08, Greg Sandor
> <gregory_sandor at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Greg Sandor <gregory_sandor at hotmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Plaster and Echoes
> > To: "David Lubman"
> <dlubman at ix.netcom.com>, "D. Clark Wernecke"
> <CWernecke at compuserve.com>
> > Cc: "Aztlan" <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>,
> "D. Clark Wernecke"
> <102402.2332 at compuserve.com>
> > Date: Saturday, September 6, 2008, 12:36 AM
> > Can someone please describe how the "chirp"
> is
> > produced?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Greg
> > 
> > (614) 517-7204
> > greg at gregsandor.com
> > http://www.gregsandor.com
> 
> 
> 
>       
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