this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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179
It puts the frequency in the bucket or it gets the sigterm again (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Can your "radio" be called that if they listen for sonic pulses ?
I thought the term radio was exclusive to electromagnetic radiation, does the term also apply for sonars ?
Or maybe bats also use some kind of EM waves to echo locate too ?
Edit: not trying to be pendantic, I'm genuinely curious about this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It is a radio though, no? If I tune in to 95.8 Khz to access Capitol FM's (bad) music, I'm hearing that radio band downshifted to 5-20 KHz on my speakers to make it audible for me.

It's the same principle I thought for bats, I'm just tuning in to lower frequencies.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

pushes glasses up nose well actually,

Radiowaves are electromagnetic radiation (like visible light and microwaves). Sound waves are kinetic motion between air molecules. Your music radio is receiving electromagnetic waves and converting to sound waves through the radio speakers.

I'm not a biologist or a linguist but I think its perfectly reasonable to call a device that captures inaudible sound a radio. But it is different than your music radio.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Huh. Mind blown. I guess that explains why a regular phone with radio capabilities couldn't pick up the bat calls without an extra device.

I do recall we had to point the "radios" at the source we were trying to capture, so I guess it's a sonar of sorts?