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Originally Posted by mrnoodle
re:sound -- when you are hearing two tones simultaneously, are the vibrations of each tone occupying the same space simultaneously? and if they are, why don't the vibrations interfere with each other and change the tones? How can the two frequencies coexist? If you drop a stone in the water, and then drop a bigger stone, the bigger vibration trumps the little one.
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Kind of
When two waves of pressure occupy the same space, they combine additively. If you drop a small stone with a 1 inch wave, and then a large stone with a 2 foot wave, when the two of them occupy the same space, the wave will be 2'1" high. The same thing with sound frequencies in a space. When a large wave and a small wave occupy the same space, they combine additively.
The reason they don't all get mashed up is that our ears are very, very good at reversing the process. They can listen to an complex waveform and pick out the composing simple waves.