Why You’re Unable to Locate Sounds Underwater
Or why you’re so bad at playing underwater Marco Polo
Playing Marco Polo underwater sucks. No matter how often and how loud you gargle “Polo!”, it’s impossible for me to tell where you are by sound alone. My directional hearing just doesn’t work underwater.
In fact, it’s even weirder than that. Not only can’t I tell where your voice is coming from when we’re both underwater, but every sound actually seems to be coming from right within my head.
So why is that? What is it about being underwater that makes it so hard to locate sounds? And why on earth do all sounds seem to originate from within my head?
How hearing works on land
To see how hearing normally works, let me stand on that hilltop over there and scream as if I was giving birth to a porcupine:
Can you hear me?
If so, it’s because I’m pushing air from my lungs through the narrow opening between my vocal cords. This causes my vocal cords to vibrate and to repeatedly slap some air particles that made the mistake of being in my throat.
