The ear does not receive copies of the source’s physical motion.

Evidence

Ohm’s advance was slow to diffuse its way into the fledgling world of psychoacoustics. According to the prevailing notion, the ear was supposed to be receiving souvenirs of motion in the object generating the sound. Ohm understood that, on the contrary, any periodic undulation could be decomposed into pendular (sinusoidal) components, and each partial would sound just as bright and clear whether some object vibrated exclusively at one frequency or at many frequencies at one time. Indeed, this was a straightforward application of Fourier’s law from early in the century, but like so many other things in psychophysics, it is not always clear that nature has decided to follow the path of the mathematicians. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2046

Categorization

• QUESTION: The closing line — nature not necessarily following mathematicians — gestures at why Fourier-style analysis could fail for the ear; worth chasing where it does.