32 or 64??

[Amedee Van Gasse]

On 31-01-10 07:14, Knapp wrote:

> So out of 10 minutes of sitting and waiting you only have to sit for
> 8.5 minutes. I know on paper 15% sounds good but when it comes to
> drinking a cup of coffee while you wait, most would not be able to
> know that it was faster. Or if we are talking seconds 10 seconds vs
> 8.5 seconds? I think most people notice things being louder, better,
> faster, slower and get excited about it when it is an order of
> magnitude (perhaps base 2).  :-) IE 2 minutes VS 4 Minutes.
>

I know that I'm going a bit on a tangent here, but you are right. The 
human relation between two different stimuli and their perceived 
difference is not linear but logarithmic.

For example, a sound of 20 dB is 10x louder (log) than a sound of 10 dB 
in terms of physics, but to our brains that process it, it sounds only 
two times as loud (linear).

I hope that it's not getting too technical...
Anyway you can argue about if its log2 or log10 or something else, but 
that's just a detail.

-- 
Amedee