Val Viers loves listening to killer whales talk. Viers, a retired professor, spends a lot of his time recording and listening to the sounds made by killer whales swimming in Puget Sound, the body of water that connects Seattle to the Pacific Ocean. What Viers hears are complicated series of clicks, eerie howls, and cries like cats’ meows. Orca whales make some of these noises to communicate with each other. They also use the high-pitched clicks like a modern ship uses its sonar, sending waves of energy through the water, looking for fish to eat. The sound bounces off the fish and returns to the whale, telling it where the fish is, how big it is, and how fast it’s swimming. The whale uses this information to decide whether to attack or not, since the size and strength of the returning noise helps the whale figure out whether it’s close to a little tasty snack …show more content…
Viers is also listening to one of the purest examples of how vibrating things produce sound, and how sound can make things vibrate. Let’s take the whale hunt we discussed above and slow it down. Whales make sounds by squeezing air between balloon‐like sacs inside their heads. When the air passes by, it causes the sacs to squeeze together, or compress, causing vibrations. Those vibrating sacs then cause the air molecules to compress, starting a chain reaction that causes the water in front of the whale’s head to compress, too. These chain reactions of compression are called sound waves. When these waves of energy hit the belly of a salmon, the salmon vibrates, too. Those little jiggles send sound waves of their own, which travel back to the whale. The sound waves penetrate the whale’s skin and cause long tunnels of fat inside its lower jawbone to vibrate. Those vibrations are transmitted to the whale’s ear. That helps the whale decide whether to go and eat, or turn and swim