Poll: Objective Measurements versus Subjective Reviews
- Thread starter PeterA
- Start date
We would need to see it fall while wearing sound proof headphones. Hearing it fall, while seeing it fall, might bias our opinion of whether or not it actually fell.
Unless it was actually measured while standing, and its acceleration measured while falling, then any idea that the tree fell is just the expectation bias of what occured. Or the observer is just delusional.
Maybe that explains my experience. One time I experienced multiple tree falls, it was during 120 mph straight-line winds, and I was in an open park of oak and pine trees. I hardly noticed the trees falling aurally. But the wind and horizontal rain kind of interfered with it, and I was hoping not to have one fall on me. I would have felt a lot better knowing it was simply a delusion.
Other times I have been close to natural tree falls they weren't really all that loud.
When we lived in California, we had a 30+ year old tree by the street outside of our front yard fence. One day I go out, walk under it and pick up the newspaper that was on the road. I stand up and see this angry driver just stopped in front of me on the road. I can't figure out why he is stopped there or why he is giving me that look. I turn 180 degrees and there it is, the 30 year old tree had falling 90 degree to my path and completely blocking the road! We are talking about a tree with 4+ foot diameter trunk, weighing easily more than 1000 to 2000 pounds. Yet it fell so quietly that within inches of it, I didn't hear it fall. Needless to say, if it had happened just 10 seconds earlier, this forum would not exist.
When we lived in California, we had a 30+ year old tree by the street outside of our front yard fence. One day I go out, walk under it and pick up the newspaper that was on the road. I stand up and see this angry driver just stopped in front of me on the road. I can't figure out why he is stopped there or why he is giving me that look. I turn 180 degrees and there it is, the 30 year old tree had falling 90 degree to my path and completely blocking the road! We are talking about a tree with 4+ foot diameter trunk, weighing easily more than 1000 to 2000 pounds. Yet it fell so quietly that within inches of it, I didn't hear it fall. Needless to say, if it had happened just 10 seconds earlier, this forum would not exist.
Well glad you survived to start the forum. Yikes.
When hearing trees in forests fall they usually bump into nearby trees. They don't snap and fall slap to the ground. I have seen some split right up huge trunks and take over 10 seconds to slowly drop the broken portion to the ground. That might be what happened near you that day. Those make very little noise.
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