The Strouhal relation predicts audible howls from ship shrouds but none from islands
Evidence
As an example, a island 5 kilometers across with a wind speed of 10 m/s would shed a pair of vortices every 30 minutes. A 3-cm-wide shroud on a tall ship in a gale at 45 km/h (12.5 m/s) would howl with a pitch of about 150 Hz, or 300 individual vortices being shed per second. If the wind reached hurricane force at 25 m/s, the pitch would double to 300 Hz. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1290
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- CANDY: A 5 km island sheds a vortex pair every 30 minutes — a fun scale-jump fact for elevator talk.
- SHARE: For sailors and rigging nerds: the howl of standing rigging in a gale is quantitatively explained by vortex shedding at ~150-300 Hz.
Related
Broader Connections
- Atmospheric physics creates striking asymmetries in how sound travels
#expands(0.78) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 32