54 | New Scientist | 5 February 2022The back pages Almost the last word
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Full terms and conditions at newscientist.com/lw-termsBest friends?
Are pet dogs just suffering from
Stockholm syndrome, or do they
genuinely enjoy our company?Clive Wynne
Department of Psychology,
Arizona State University, US
Author of Dog is Love
It’s true, our dogs are trapped
with us, not allowed to leave
the house unless tethered to a
human on a leash and, yes, fully
dependent on us for everything
they need in life – and yet their
love for us transcends anything
like Stockholm syndrome.
I see this most obviously when
I return home from a walk with
my dog, Xephos. Her joy at seeing
my wife and son transcends how a
kidnapped person would respond
to being returned to their jailers.
This is also clear when we
consider that the majority of the
world’s 800 million dogs don’t
live as pets, captive inside a house.
Most roam the streets of poorer
countries. These aren’t anyone’s
captives and yet they still formemotional bonds with individual
people. Studies by Anindita Bhadra
at the Indian Institute of Science
and Education in Kolkata, India,
and her colleagues show that street
dogs rapidly form affectionate ties
with people who treat them gently.
Light petting builds a bond of
trust faster even than offering
pieces of chicken.
There is considerable value in
being clear-eyed about the way we
constrain our dogs’ lives, but that
doesn’t mean that their love for us
amounts to Stockholm syndrome.Joe Sweeney
via Twitter
Not sure about dogs, but with
cats, it’s the other way around.DEEP
OL
BYPLAINPICTURESolar vibe
My yoga teacher is hosting a gong
bath where the gong is supposedly
tuned to the frequency of the solar
system. Does the solar system have
a frequency? If so, is it possible to
tune a gong to it?Garry Trethewey
Cherryville, South Australia
The word “frequency” alludes to
how frequently something recurs.
As an exercise, we could look at
just some of the frequencies that
the solar system can display.
The sun emits electromagnetic
radiation with frequencies from
1018 hertz (1 million million million
waves per second) down to a
sedate 104 hertz (10,000 waves
per second). The sun spins on its
axis about every 27 days. Mercuryorbits the sun in 88 days, and
Neptune does so in 165 years.
The whole solar system orbits
the centre of the galaxy in
about 230 million years.
Whatever gong your yoga
teacher chooses, there will
certainly be some frequency
that it is tuned to.Herman D’Hondt
Sydney, Australia
This claim can be debunked for
a number of reasons. The solar
system has an enormous number
of different frequencies. It just
depends on what you look at. For
example, Earth turns once every
24 hours (f = 0.0000116 hertz).
Every other object in the solar
system has it own frequencies.
None of these is more important
than any other, and together theywould make quite a cacophony.
As well as this, a gong will
vibrate at audible frequencies,
i.e. somewhere between 20 and
20,000 Hz. Audible frequencies
have to be generated by small
objects; the larger the object, the
lower its frequency will be. As we
know, the solar system is huge, far
too large to generate a frequency
in the range of a gong. Even things
like earthquakes have frequencies
that are below the audible range.
The planets’ orbital frequencies
would need to be multiplied by
about 100 billion to bring them
into the audible range.
Finally, sound is vibration, and
the movements of solar system
objects aren’t. They are elliptical
movements in a vacuum and have
nothing to do with vibration.Helen Harris
Edinburgh, UK
Sound therapists may use gongs
described as being “tuned” to a
particular celestial body in our
solar system. The concept of the
sun, the moon or a planet being
associated with sound has its
roots in the musica universalis
(“music of the spheres”). This
is a philosophical concept from
ancient Greece, in particular
Pythagoras and his followers.
They reasoned that just as
the vibrations of the air resulting
from a taut string being plucked
produce sound, the sun, the moon
and the planets all emit their
own unique hum based on
their orbital revolution.
Then, in the early 17th century,
astronomer Johannes Kepler in
his Harmonices Mundi (“harmony
of the world”) described the orbital
motions of the sun, the moon,
Earth, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn and Venus (all the planets
known at the time). He calculated
that their motions nearly perfectly
match musical intervals and
harmonies. He believed that,
while inaudible, these could
be heard by the soul.This week’s new questions
Burn out Why does a candle make more smoke just after it
has been extinguished? Bob Yelland, Alton, Hampshire, UKFungal friends Plants and fungi share highly developed
symbiotic relationships, but do humans, or any other animal,
enjoy similar beneficial relationships? Or is it all just itchy
feet and flaky skin? David Pidgeon, Bristol, UKWhy is more smoke
produced when you have
just blown out a candle?“ My dog’s joy at seeing
my family transcends
how a kidnapped
person would respond
to being returned to
their jailers”