Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Contents -- 1 Just Listening -- A Brief History of Noise -- These Ears Were Made for Listening -- Making Sense of Sounds -- Name that Sound -- Seeing with Sound -- Soundworlds -- The Business of Listening -- Soundscapes -- The Gentle Art of Listening -- 2 Pythagoras' Hammers -- Music and the Origins of Science -- The Nature of Sound According to the Ancient Greeks -- The Dark Ages and Beyond -- The Scientific Revolution -- The Sound of Music -- Resonant Sounds -- How Fast Does Sound Travel in Air? -- The Entwined Histories of Light and Sound -- Air is not the Only Medium -- Sound in Water -- Sound and the Vacuum -- 3 Sound Science -- Mind Over Matter -- The Science of Vibrations -- Sounds and Waves -- Sounds Combined -- Sounds Impeded -- Sounds on Other Worlds -- The Evolution of the Ear -- Sounds Untangled -- The Paradoxes of Pitch -- How Big is that Sound? -- Hearing Lost and Found -- Locating Sounds -- The Cocktail Party Phenomenon -- The Limits of Audible Sound -- Biosonar -- 4 Sounds Abroad -- Noises from Afar -- Silent Nights and Noisy days -- Zones of Silence -- Volcanic Eruptions -- Brontides -- Underwater Sounds -- Keeping an Ear to the Ground -- Sound Shadows -- The Doppler Effect -- 5 Sounds Returned -- The Sound of Silence -- Echoes -- From Myth to Mathematics -- Multiple Echoes -- Echoes in Nature -- Musical Echoes -- Reflection Tones -- Echo Tubes
and Culvert Whistlers -- Harmonic Echoes -- Whispering Galleries -- Echolocation in War and Peace -- Reverberation -- Paleolithic Cathedrals -- 6 Making Noise -- Impacts -- Musical Stones -- Acoustic Whistlers -- Good Vibrations -- Listening to a Seashell -- The Sound of Froth -- The Human Voice -- Helium Voice -- Singing in a Bathroom -- The Sounds of Friction -- Singing Wine Glass -- Shattering a Wine Glass with the Human Voice.
Squeals of Delight -- Singing Sands -- Booming Sands -- Babbling Brooks and Hissing Kettles -- In Praise of Dripping Taps -- The Kettle's Song -- Bees in Trees -- The Howl of the Wind -- Aeolian Harps -- Whistle While You Work -- Shock Waves -- Sonic Booms -- Bullwhips -- Explosions -- Thunder -- A Final Clap -- Index.