Maybe based on the bones and flesh imprints in the rock you could recreate what the sounding cavity may have been like, which would help you get an idea for what sort of vocalizations would be possible.
Comment on Bryony Page
magnetosphere@fedia.io 1 month ago
How do you write a dissertation on acoustic signaling for creatures that have been extinct for millions of years? It’s all untested theory on top of untested theory.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Turning a raptor bone into an ocarina is the plot line of like 30% of Jurassic Park movies. The other 70% is using raptor bones to pretend disembowel children. It’s all raptor bones.
magnetosphere@fedia.io 1 month ago
I sorta get it, but stuff like that can only tell you so much. It’s an awful lot of hypothesizing and guesswork - so much that I’m surprised you can make a dissertation out of it.
Then again, I’ve never had to write a dissertation, so I don’t know what’s involved.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The dissertation wouldn’t have to prove anything unquestionably. It would just have to demonstrate a sound understanding of good principles that are being worked from.
Any conclusions could be completely wrong, and it could still be a great dissertation.
Think of how long it took paleontologists to prove dinosaurs had feathers. Every other paleontologist before then was not a blithering idiot.
magnetosphere@fedia.io 1 month ago
Ah. Demonstrate understanding. Thank you. That makes sense! I wasn’t trying to be obstinate. I just didn’t get it.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
With context.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Computer modelling has gotten incredibly sophisticated in the last 30 years.
apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 month ago
Carefully
drathvedro@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Nobody tell this guy about the state of modern physics.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Wow wow wow! Modern physics is based on things that have experimental proof.
You are probably thinking of the theoretical physicists that are constantly speculating on things like what exactly Dark Matter is, BUT the presence of “dark matter” and basically all other phenomenon that do have great explanations for are actually, literally and demonstrably real.
Something makes dark matter. Something causes the Weak Force to only care about left-handed particles (or was it right-handed? bah my memory!), we just need to know what. Even things like particles having spin and basically anything you would learn from a competent school is demonstrably true all the way back to Newtonian physics.Newton wasn’t wrong, it just breaks down at larger scales. Even General Relativity has some issues, and some argue the Standard Model may need significant revisions … but that is still EXTREMELY grounded in reality.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not true. There has been no demonstration, no experimental evidence producing dark matter. Nothing from the LHC.
Maybe only our imagination. Researchers have been able to infer the existence of dark matter only from the gravitational effect it seems to have on visible matter.
Dinosaur feathers are the paleontological equivalent of dark matter.
Skulls can provide a huge amount of acoustic information.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 month ago
“Producing dark matter”… and you think that’s a valid question!? We don’t even know what causes dark matter, and your ignorant ass wants proof on what we cannot yet 3xplicitly define?
Shame on you, and shame on anyone who upvotes such a blatantly ignorant expression of doubt.
drathvedro@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I ain’t no physicist, but the last time I’ve checked, it was a theory galore, with theories upon theories about whether there could even exists a single definite theory of everything, with stuff not being observable by it’s nature (quantum particles), other stuff not being observable by it’s nature (beyond observable universe), and theories based upon the event of literal creation of the universe itself, which is in turn theorized by linearly extrapolating a single phenomenon all the way down to zero (correct me if I’m wrong on this one, shit’s fascinating).
Finding how dinosaurs sounded like, on the other hand, doesn’t take much theorizing - just take some well preserved remains, approximate breathing cavities structure and model it with something like a pink trombone. I’m oversimplifying, of course, but, the point is, it’s miles closer to us, time and space wise, than whatever physicists are rambling about.
theoretiker@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Am physicist. Quantum particles are observable. Often things are observable because you can observe their effects. Can’t measure a top quark, but you can measure the electrons and photons when it decays. And their energy and how often it happens lines up with theories developed to describe some different thing.
Theory of everything can’t exist, be abuse Gödels incompleteness theorem. But no physicist doubts that all the microscopic stuff gives rise to the macroscopic.
The beginning of the universe you can see in the microwave background or something. So again that’s just experimentally motivated theory.
Some of us come up with random theories because it’s fun. But most of the time the theory is aimed at explaining some thing that we observe and will coincidentally make predictions about other stuff which we can test.
Finding out how dinosaurs sounded like is dope af from a physicists perspective.
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world 1 month ago
But with a powerful enough telescope, you just … Like… Fucking LOOK AT the beginning of time. The instant that instants became. There is a lot of theory about why it looks like that (all based on math you could never possibly understand) but it’s not just a bunch of half baked dudes on a couch coming up with “theories” as you seem to use the word.