What makes echoes

Noticing changes in the sound can still be useful. Some animals like bats and dolphins, and even some children, can use this to tell where they are.

If you know of any good echo spots, leave a comment below. Some people believe that when a duck quacks, it does not echo but some scientists in the UK did an experiment and said that was not true. Many scientists like to study sounds without echoes. Read more: Curious Kids: Who made the alphabet song? Hello, curious kids! Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids theconversation. Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. The most practiced ear cannot distinguish in a second more than from nine to twelve successive sounds, so that a distance of not less than sixty feet is needed to enable a common ear to distinguish between the echo and the original sounds.

At a near distance the echo only clouds the original sounds. This often interferes with the hearing in churches and other large buildings. Woods, rocks and mountains produce natural echoes in every variety, for which particular localities have become famous. In Greek mythology, Echo was a nymph one of the Oreads who fell in love with Narcissus, and because he did not reciprocate her affection she pined away until nothing was left but her voice. A reverberation can occur when a sound wave is reflected off a nearby surface.

An echo is usually clear and can be easily distinguished because of the distance and time the sound wave travels. Reverberations do not usually have enough distance or time to travel which means they can pile up on each other making it very difficult to comprehend. Echoes can be used to determine the distance of a reflecting object such as a large building or mountain if the ambient temperature and humidity are known.

Reverberation does not allow enough travel time to use it to measure distance. With reverberation, sound waves pile on top of each other arriving at the receiver or ear at different times making it difficult to comprehend or understand. The piling up of soundwaves also increases the sound energy in a room.