Short Transient Time Research Articles

COINCIDENCE FILTERS AS MODELS FOR THE HUMAN CAPACITY FOR PITCH DISCRIMINATION

The human ear shows a fine pitch discrimination combined with a short transient time; the product of bandwidth and transient time is smaller than 1. According to the investigations of G. v. Bekesy the mechanism of this frequency discrimination cannot be located in the inner ear; it must be searched in the cochlear nerve or in the brain.

On the theory of stationary waves in plasmas

Existing theories of stationary plasma oscillations lead to a dispersion equation (2), involving an integration across a pole. It is here shown that this difficulty is of purely mathematical origin, and can be overcome by a proper treatment. This treatment leads to a complete set of stationary solutions, which are much more numerous than the usual plasma oscillations. In particular, their wave lengths and frequencies are not connected by a dispersion equation, but independently assume all real values. Special superpositions of these stationary solutions correspond to the usual plasma oscillations. They constitute slightly damped plane waves, which do obey the dispersion equation (2), the integral being interpreted as a Cauchy principal value. An arbitrary initial distribution behaves (after a short transient time) like a superposition of such waves, as far as the density is concerned.