Hair cells are overdamped and cannot oscillate pendulously

Evidence

In fact, the problem is much worse than the underwater harp: harp strings are rather large and taut. But hair cells are tiny. Fluid dynamics teaches us that in a liquid such as water, the smaller you are, the more viscous the water seems. At the size of cells, viscosity is so high that cells move only if there is an applied force acting on them at the moment. Gliding along because of an earlier push plays no role. In particular, cells or tiny hairs could not swing through pendular motion even once because in the middle of the swing there is no force on the pendulum. The technical term is overdamped. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1984

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘overdamped’ in the concrete context of why tiny cells in water cannot sustain motion.