Word: ear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...delicate an instrument is the human ear that at certain frequencies it can discern sound that moves the eardrum a distance only one-tenth the size of a hydrogen atom. The close-up roar of a jet engine amounts to one million billion times this threshhold level; this causes actual pain and soon brings on permanent deafness. Sound vibrations are transmitted by the eardrum and ossicle bones to the inner ear, a bony and membranous structure lined with tiny hairs that connect to the brain's auditory nerve. It is these hairs that are damaged most in noise-induced...
...awarded $1,661.25 in compensation to a partially deafened drop-forge worker. As a result, most companies engaged in noisy work have started noise-abatement measures and regular tests of workers' hearing. Three states-California, Oregon and Washington-have legal limits to industrial noise; in California, for instance, ear protection must be issued if the noise level reaches 95 to 110 decibels, depending on frequency and duration. Compensation claims for industrial hearing loss of varying degree are currently being settled for around $2,500 to $3,500 across the country...
Never, insist the worriers, have the hairlike sensors of the inner ear twitched to such a range of roaring, buzzing, beeping, grinding, howling, jangling, blaring, booming, screeching, whining, gnashing and crashing. And it seems to be getting worse all the time. The more militant anti-pollutionists blame racket for such woes as heart disease, high blood pressure, stomach ulcers and sexual impotence...
Moreover, much of what irritates modern man is simply new noise traded in for old. The ear that flinches at the diesel blat of a bus might recoil as much from the clang-rattle-crash of the old trolley. The whine of rubber tires replaces the bang and screech of unsprung cartwheels on cobblestones; the backfire supplants the ringing hooves of dray horses...
...most-used unit to measure sound is the decibel, named in honor of Alexander Graham Bell, and defined as the smallest difference in loudness that the human ear can detect...