The ear responds to intensities which can vary over a range of 1012. (That is, a

Question

The ear responds to intensities which can vary over a range of 1012. (That is, an undamaged ear can detect sounds from the threshold of hearing, 10?12 W/m2, to the threshold of pain, 1 W/m2.) Suppose you built an instrument which could measure distances which change over this same range of magnitudes. Suppose the smallest distance the instrument could measure is 0.1 mm (or 100 ?m), the typical width of a human hair. What would be the largest distance it could measure? Give an example of a physical situation involving this distance (e.g. the width of a continent, the earth-sun distance, or some example like that.)

Explanation / Answer

In neuroscience and psychophysics, an absolute threshold is the smallest detectable level of a stimulus.[1] However, at this low level, subjects will sometimes detect the stimulus and at other times not. Therefore, an alternative definition of absolute threshold is the lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of the time.[1] The absolute threshold can be influenced by several different factors, such as the subject's motivations and expectations, cognitive processes, and whether the subject is adapted to the stimulus.[1] The absolute threshold can be compared to the difference threshold, which is the measure of how different two stimuli have to be in order for the subject to notice that they are not the same

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