There have been many periods of isolated total silence here in Fairfield since I moved here a dozen years ago. These are of course always at night, but they remind me of my childhood in both Manhattan and the Hudson highlands — in Manhattan I was fascinated by the endless inarticulate roar of the city, faint at times, but never absent. And I was equally captivated by the night-sounds of the country above the Hudson, where on an occasional summer night there would be a lull of real silence. Or in a snow blanketed winter, when all the nights, and most days, were truly silent and one could only listen to the blood flowing.
It’s those microvilli (“stereocilia”) (c. 1 um cylinders) atop the primary cilia within the cochlea, which amplify the tiniest sounds, approaching the soft rattle of Brownian motion itself.
stereocilia
The Sound of Silence
There have been many periods of isolated total silence here in Fairfield since I moved here a dozen years ago. These are of course always at night, but they remind me of my childhood in both Manhattan and the Hudson highlands — in Manhattan I was fascinated by the endless inarticulate roar of the city, faint at times, but never absent. And I was equally captivated by the night-sounds of the country above the Hudson, where on an occasional summer night there would be a lull of real silence. Or in a snow blanketed winter, when all the nights, and most days, were truly silent and one could only listen to the blood flowing.
It’s those microvilli (“stereocilia”) (c. 1 um cylinders) atop the primary cilia within the cochlea, which amplify the tiniest sounds, approaching the soft rattle of Brownian motion itself.
stereocilia