On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:51:40 -0000, Jim Kelley
wrote:

On Jul 14, 12:42 pm, "Hein ten Horn"
wrote:
Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:
Hein ten Horn wrote:
A vibrating element here (such as a cubic micrometre
of matter) experiences different changing forces. Yet
the element cannot follow all of them at the same time.

It does. Not identically but it does follow all of them.

Impossible. Remember, we're talking about sound. Mechanical
forces only. Suppose you're driving, just going round the corner.
From the outside a fistful of forces is working on your body,
downwards, upwards, sidewards. It is absolutely impossible
that your body's centre of gravity is following different forces in
different directions at the same time. Only the resulting force is
changing your movement (according to Newton's second law).

As a matter of fact the resulting force (the resultant) is
fully determining the change of the velocity (vector) of
the element.
The resulting force on our element is changing at the
frequency of 222 Hz, so the matter is vibrating at the
one and only 222 Hz.

Your idea of frequency is informal and leaves out
essential aspects of how physical systems work.

Nonsense. Mechanical oscillations are fully determined by
forces acting on the vibrating mass. Both mass and resulting force
determine the frequency. It's just a matter of applying the laws of physics.

Question

Is our auditory system in some way acting like a spectrum analyser?
(Is it able to distinguish the composing frequencies from a vibration?)

---
Yes, of course.

The cilia in the cochlea are different lengths and, consequently,
"tuned" to different frequencies to which they respond by undulating
and sending electrical signals to the brain when the nerves to which
they're connected fire. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_of_Corti



--
JF