A solution to the mystery of the sub-harmonic series via a linear model of the cochlea

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Boscain, Ugo, Ma, Xiangyu, Prandi, Dario, Turco, Giuseppina
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917268680605696
author Boscain, Ugo
Ma, Xiangyu
Prandi, Dario
Turco, Giuseppina
author_facet Boscain, Ugo
Ma, Xiangyu
Prandi, Dario
Turco, Giuseppina
contents In this paper, we study a simple linear model of the cochlea as a set of vibrating strings. We make hypothesis that the information sent to the auditory cortex is the energy stored in the strings and consider all oscillation modes of the strings. We show the emergence of the sub-harmonic series whose existence was hypothesized in the XVI century to explain the consonance of the minor chord. We additionally show how the nonlinearity of the energy can be used to study the emergence of the combination tone (Tartini's third sound) shedding new light on this long debated subject.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_26395
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A solution to the mystery of the sub-harmonic series via a linear model of the cochlea
Boscain, Ugo
Ma, Xiangyu
Prandi, Dario
Turco, Giuseppina
Signal Processing
Analysis of PDEs
Biological Physics
Classical Physics
Medical Physics
In this paper, we study a simple linear model of the cochlea as a set of vibrating strings. We make hypothesis that the information sent to the auditory cortex is the energy stored in the strings and consider all oscillation modes of the strings. We show the emergence of the sub-harmonic series whose existence was hypothesized in the XVI century to explain the consonance of the minor chord. We additionally show how the nonlinearity of the energy can be used to study the emergence of the combination tone (Tartini's third sound) shedding new light on this long debated subject.
title A solution to the mystery of the sub-harmonic series via a linear model of the cochlea
topic Signal Processing
Analysis of PDEs
Biological Physics
Classical Physics
Medical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.26395