Fact 2. Go Back In Time
One of the most interesting new fields of historical research is called Archaeoacoustics and it’s basically what it sounds like: using sound as a tool in the study of archaeology. Every room in your house has a different “sound,” in that depending on how the room is laid out and what decorations or on the wall, you will get a certain echo that is unique to that room. The idea here is that an historical site will have a certain “sound” to it as well. So, scientists at the University of Salford in the UK decided to figure out what Stonehenge sounded like. They popped balloons and recorded the reverb and echoes with a field recorder, and then analyzed the results with a computer model. They found that Stonehenge was a rather reflective space, with a reverb time similar to that of a lecture hall, due to the flat surfaces of the stones. This may even have contributed to it’s spiritual significance in the past. And thanks to the Internet, you can go visit Stonehenge without leaving your chair.