The range of hearing for loudness is so large that we must use a logarithmic scale to the base 10 to measure it.

• If we start with 1, the loudest sound we can hear is:

  • 100,000,000,000,000,000

• Our problem now, if we want to test that range, is to develop an intensity dial that goes from 0 (no sound) to that number.

• Hall‰s attempt to make an Intensity Dial can be viewed in the Graphic Version.

• My intensity dial was a failure. I couldn‰t do it because it takes too many numbers to get to the top. That‰s. because I was using an Arithmetic scale.

  • 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

• A Geometric scale would involve less numbers. For example:

  • 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 etc.

• But still the numbers are too large to fit on a dial. So we can use their log values. For example:

  • 100, 101, 102, 103, 104 etc. (That is supposed to read 10 to the zero, 10 to the first, 10 to the second, 10 to the third, etc.)

• Since the above is all to the base 10, we can leave out 10 and just use the exponents like this:

  • 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.