Trevor Cox

Last updated

Trevor Cox
CitizenshipBritish
Alma mater University of Birmingham (BSc)
University of Salford (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields Acoustics
Institutions University of Salford
Website trevorcox.me

Trevor Cox is an English academic and science communicator. He was a Senior Media fellow for EPSRC, and is a past-President of the Institute of Acoustics.

Contents

Academia

Cox holds a degree in Physics and a PhD in Acoustics. He entered the field of acoustics because of an interest in music and his science background. He has been an academic in Acoustics Department at the University of Salford since 1995 and currently holds the position of Professor of Acoustic Engineering.

Cox is fascinated by room acoustics, and how places can be designed for intelligible speech (for example, classrooms) and beautiful music (for example, auditoria). His acoustic designs can be found in rooms worldwide and he has co-authored a research book on absorbers and diffusers which is now in its third edition. [1] He was an associate editor for an international journal of acoustics (Acta Acustica united with Acustica).

He uses both qualitative methods (focus groups, interviews, sound-walks) and quantitative methods (perceptual testing in laboratories and over the Internet) to explore responses to sounds from products (such as washing machines), in outdoor spaces (such as cities) and various sound types (such as horrible sounds). He was director of ‘A Noisy Future?’, an ‘Ideas Factory’ research programme run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He was award the Institute of Acoustics's Tyndall Medal in 2004.

Broadcasting

Cox has presented a range of popular science documentaries for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and BBC World Service, including Sounds of Science, Aural Architecture, Life’s Soundtrack, Science vs Strad, The Pleasure of Noise, World Musical Instruments, Dragon's Lab, Biomimicry and Save our Sounds. He was co-originator and judge of BBC Radio 4’ ‘So You Want To Be A Scientist?’, a competition to find Britain’s best amateur scientist. He has appeared on Inside Science.

He is host of the Inventive Podcast, mixing Engineering Fact and Fiction.

Media coverage

Since the 1990s, Cox has been communicating acoustic engineering to the public working on projects worth over £1 million. He was given the Institute of Acoustics award for promoting acoustics to the public in 2009. He was a finalist at Famelab, a ‘Pop Idol’-style competition to find science communicators for television. He has been involved in projects to produce teaching resources for pupils, the last having reached more than a quarter of a million pupils. He has developed and presented science shows seen by 17,000 pupils, including appearances in London at the Royal Albert Hall, the Purcell Rooms at the South Bank Centre and the Royal Institution. At one stage, he held the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest whoopee cushion, based on a stage prop used at the "Beautiful Music – Horrible Sounds" show. [2] He set the Guinness World Record for the 'Longest echo' in the Inchindown oil tanks.

He has gained worldwide news coverage for stories such as "Does a duck quack echo?" [3] [4] and "The Worst Sound in the World". [5] He has also investigated the World's scariest scream. [6] In addition, he has appeared in features on BBC1, Teachers TV, Discovery and National Geographic channels, and as an expert in news items on a variety of television and radio channels.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acoustics</span> Branch of physics involving mechanical waves

Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries.

Room acoustics is a subfield of acoustics dealing with the behaviour of sound in enclosed or partially-enclosed spaces. The architectural details of a room influences the behaviour of sound waves within it, with the effects varying by frequency. Acoustic reflection, diffraction, and diffusion can combine to create audible phenomena such as room modes and standing waves at specific frequencies and locations, echos, and unique reverberation patterns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acoustical engineering</span> Branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration

Acoustical engineering is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration. It includes the application of acoustics, the science of sound and vibration, in technology. Acoustical engineers are typically concerned with the design, analysis and control of sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architectural acoustics</span> Science and engineering of achieving a good sound within a building

Architectural acoustics is the science and engineering of achieving a good sound within a building and is a branch of acoustical engineering. The first application of modern scientific methods to architectural acoustics was carried out by the American physicist Wallace Sabine in the Fogg Museum lecture room. He applied his newfound knowledge to the design of Symphony Hall, Boston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leo Beranek</span> American acoustics expert

Leo Leroy Beranek was an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor, and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman. He authored Acoustics, considered a classic textbook in this field, and its updated and extended version published in 2012 under the title Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers. He was also an expert in the design and evaluation of concert halls and opera houses, and authored the classic textbook Music, Acoustics, and Architecture, revised and extended in 2004 under the title Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture.

Archaeoacoustics is a sub-field of archaeology and acoustics which studies the relationship between people and sound throughout history. It is an interdisciplinary field with methodological contributions from acoustics, archaeology, and computer simulation, and is broadly related to topics within cultural anthropology such as experimental archaeology and ethnomusicology. Since many cultures have sonic components, applying acoustical methods to the study of archaeological sites and artifacts may reveal new information on the civilizations examined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diffusion (acoustics)</span>

Diffusion, in architectural acoustics, is the spreading of sound energy evenly in a given environment. A perfectly diffusive sound space is one in which the reverberation time is the same at any listening position. Most interior spaces are non-diffusive; the reverberation time is considerably different around the room. At low frequencies, they suffer from prominent resonances called room modes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Al-Khalili</span> British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster

Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on BBC radio and television, and a frequent commentator about science in other British media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William M. Hartmann</span>

William M. Hartmann is a noted physicist, psychoacoustician, author, and former president of the Acoustical Society of America. His major contributions in psychoacoustics are in pitch perception, binaural hearing, and sound localization. Working with junior colleagues, he discovered several major pitch effects: the binaural edge pitch, the binaural coherence edge pitch, the pitch shifts of mistuned harmonics, and the harmonic unmasking effect. His textbook, Signals, Sound and Sensation, is widely used in courses on psychoacoustics. He is currently a professor of physics at Michigan State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audio engineer</span> Engineer involved in the recording, reproduction, or reinforcement of sound

An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts."

Jens Peter Blauert is a German scientist specializing in psychoacoustics and an emeritus professor at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, where he founded the Institute of Communication Acoustics. His major scientific fields of interest are spatial hearing, binaural technology, aural architecture, perceptual quality, speech technology, virtual environments and tele-presence.

Kirill Horoshenkov is a Russian-born British academic and professor at the University of Sheffield. He is an expert in outdoor sound propagation, acoustic materials and instrumentation. In recognition of his contribution to the field of acoustics, he was awarded the Tyndall Medal by the Institute of Acoustics in 2006. He was elected a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 2014 and fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020.

Olga Umnova is Russian-born British academic, lecturer in theoretical acoustics in the acoustics department at the University of Salford. In recognition of her contribution to the field of acoustics, she was awarded the prestigious Tyndall Medal by the Institute of Acoustics in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salford Acoustics</span>

Salford Acoustics offers acoustics and audio engineering courses, undertakes public and industrial research in acoustics, carries out commercial testing, and undertakes activities to engage the public in acoustic science and engineering. It is based in two locations: (i) 3 km west of Manchester city centre, UK, in the Newton Building on the Peel Park Campus of the University of Salford, and (ii) on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Manchester at MediaCityUK.

Philip Hope Edward Bagenal, was a British architectural theorist and acoustician who introduced a scientific approach to the acoustic design of buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Leighton</span> Professor of Ultrasonics and Underwater Acoustics

Timothy Grant Leighton is the Professor of Ultrasonics and Underwater Acoustics at the University of Southampton. He is the inventor-in-chief of Sloan Water Technology Ltd., a company founded around his inventions. He is an academician of three national academies. Trained in physics and theoretical physics, he works across physical, medical, biological, social and ocean sciences, fluid dynamics and engineering. He joined the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton in 1992 as a lecturer in underwater acoustics, and completed the monograph The Acoustic Bubble in the same year. He was awarded a personal chair at the age of 35 and has authored over 400 publications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lamberto Tronchin</span> Italian acoustician, engineer, theorist, musician

Lamberto Tronchin is an Italian acoustician, engineer, theorist, musician, and professor of musical acoustics and environmental physics at the University of Bologna.

Manohar Lal Munjal is an Indian acoustical engineer, honorary professor, and INSA senior scientist at the Facility for Research in Technical Acoustics (FRITA) of the Indian Institute of Science. He is known for his studies on aeroacoustics and finite wave analysis of exhaust systems. He is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, India as well as the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He has published three books viz. Noise and Vibration Control, Acoustics of Ducts and Mufflers With Application to Exhaust and Ventilation System Design, and IUTAM Symposium on Designing for Quietness and has contributed chapters to books edited by himself and others. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Engineering Sciences in 1986.

Auditory science or hearing science is a field of research and education concerning the perception of sounds by humans, animals, or machines. It is a heavily interdisciplinary field at the crossroad between acoustics, neuroscience, and psychology. It is often related to one or many of these other fields: psychophysics, psychoacoustics, audiology, physiology, otorhinolaryngology, speech science, automatic speech recognition, music psychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics.

The Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was established in 1964 by the Chinese government in the context of China's national defense needs for acoustic research, under the auspices of Marshall Nie Rongzhen.

References

  1. "Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers: Theory, Design and Application, 3rd Edition". CRC press. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  2. "The Ri makes the world's largest whoopee cushion!". The Royal Institution. 12 February 2009. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
  3. "Science 'quacks' urban duck myth". CNN. 8 September 2003. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
  4. "Sound Science is quackers". BBC. 8 September 2003. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
  5. "World's worst sound? Take baked beans, a bucket and Saturday night". The Guardian. 27 January 2007. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
  6. "Kid British and the science of screaming". The Guardian. 22 September 2009. Retrieved 20 January 2011.