A duck's quack doesnt echo, does anyone know why??

Question

This is actually true.

Answer 1

Summary: A duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why.

Status: False.

Comments: Note well that you won't find this claim made in any scientific journal or textbook. You will find it in questionable sources such as email trivia lists and fruit drink bottle caps — reason enough to be skeptical.

The obvious question — and the one never answered by those who tout this absurd factoid, naturally — is, why wouldn't a duck's quack echo? What could there possibly be about the sound a duck makes that would uniquely exempt it from the physical laws that apply to all other such sounds, e.g., a dog's bark, a cat's meow or a lamb's bleat?

The answer is: nothing

i didn't find any site that says it's true...they all call it a legend/myth :s .

Answer 2

First let us understand why the word ‘quack’ which means fake, impostor, fraud, swindler, pretender etc. is used to describe the sound made by a duck…simply because it was felt that the sound made by the duck was indeed fake. This led to the belief that this fake sound therefore could not echo. The truth is that the ‘quack’ does echo as per the relative laws of physics. However, the volume of the echo is so faint that the human ear does not easily pick it up. The reason for this is that the ‘quack’ does not come out as a compact sound but as a scattered sound. Let’s see if I can make this a little easier…imagine the sound of a quack as a lump of glass, now just as this lump of glass is being released into the atmosphere it is shattered into a million tiny pieces of sound dispersed in different directions. These tiny sound particles echo with correspondingly tiny volumes which results in us not being able to hear the sound. Needless to mention that if it is very, very quite you can hear the unheard like the opening of flowers.

Answer 3

This is like saying: If a tree falls in the forest it doesn't make any noise if no one is there to hear it!
A Ducks quack can and does echo, and all sound waves and noise are under the same condition to to rules.
It just so happens that Ducks are almost always without fail seen in very open spaces or grounds. Typically around sprawling lakes or wetlands when their on the ground. they are NEVER found in or around canyon areas where there is walls of solid materials for the sounds that they make to rebound into your ear to be able to hear an echo.
While ducks are in the air they again are in very open area in the sky, so when they quack and emit noise, the noise has NOTHING to rebound off of therefor No echo.
I hope this helps you re-think the untrue idea that a noise from a duck cannot echo for some special reasoning you've talked yourself into believing.

Answer 4

It might be due to the fact that it is not that long which can come to you in echo,it may also be a reason that the duck quacks near water and water absorbs the harshness of the sound as a result it does not echo.

Answer 5

No, this is NOT TRUE! Mythbusters dissproved this myth on their first season (I think). A duck's quack DOES ECHO, however, it cannot be heard by human hearing, only by sound equipment. Check out the link to the Mythbusters and see if it's there. It's from Episode 8.

Answer 6

The sound waves from a duck's quack already are so similiar to that of an echo that they sort of cancel out.b

Answer 7

How can sheeple be so dumb? Of course it echoes, it is just unusual to find a duck in a natural setting conducive to an echo.

So the myth lives on.

Go to snopes.com and check out an actual scientific experiment where they proved this to be BS.

Answer 8

Because you have heard and absorbed all.
This is news will have to experiment. May be quack sound is flat and has no variable frequencies. or it does not reach to the point of echo.

Answer 9

Because the shape of the sound waves cannot travel as far, and it DOES echo inside the bill, which is why it sounds muffled to us a little.

Answer 10

It quacks in the lake. not in the mountains.