Page 7 - Volume 9, Issue 3

This is the first issue (ever!) of
Acoustics Today not to be edited by Dick
Stern, who edited this magazine from its
first issue in October 2005 until his death
on June 19, 2013. While it seems like only
yesterday that the Society made the deci-
sion to have a popular magazine and
appointed Dick as its founding editor, we
are now in the second half of the ninth
year. A lot of “good stuff” has been pub-
lished with Dick’s guidance during those
years, and it is hoped that the tradition will
continue with the same degree of excel-
lence. As is described in the “News” section of this issue, a search is fully underway to find a new Editor, and it is hoped that the new Editor will take the reins by the beginning of 2014. In the meanwhile, the magazine will continue to be published at intervals of three months or less, and someone has to serve as an Acting Editor. This temporary job has devolved upon the ASA Editor-in-Chief, and what is here is the first of probably three issues that he will edit.
Actually, putting together the content of this issue didn’t present too big a challenge as Dick had laid out a plan some time ago to have this issue focus on noise, and had asked Scott Sommerfeldt to guest-edit this issue. Scott, in his guest edito- rial below, has more to say about this.
While the bulk of the articles in this issue is consequent-
ly about noise, the newly appointed Acting Editor wanted to make sure that this issue did not end up being too slim, and invited another article, this one being in the gen- eral area of underwater acoustics. A cou- ple of years ago, the present writer was privileged to hear a talk by Lisa Zurk in a “Hot Topics” session at the Spring 2011 ASA meeting in Seattle. The talk was appropriately titled “Hot Topics in Underwater Acoustics,” and a hot topic that was described in the talk was “the application of the waveguide invariant in
active and passive sonar systems for enhanced detection, localization, and classification.” It seemed incredible that there was something that was invariant in underwater acoustics that the bulk of the underwater acoustics communi- ty didn’t know about 10 years ago, but such does appear to be the case. The waveguide invariant isn’t easy to explain, but it was anticipated that the one person who could explain it best would be Chris Harrison. The end result of this line of think- ing is the last article in this issue, the article being about the underlying basis of the waveguide invariant.
The other material in this issue is, of course, recom- mended reading. It is especially recommended that you read the piece in the “Passings” section about the life and achieve- ments of Dick Stern. An incredible person! He will be missed!
FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Allan D. Pierce
Acoustical Society of America Publications Office
PO Box 274
1170 Main Street
West Barnstable, MA 02668 allanpierce@verizon.net
FROM THE GUEST EDITOR
Scott Sommerfeldt
College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
This issue of Acoustics Today has a focus on
noise issues of current interest. While different
definitions of “noise” have been put forth, they
generally center around the concept that noise
consists of unwanted or undesirable sound. The
articles presented in this issue deal with two
such sources of noise. There are two articles
that deal with the noise associated with wind
turbines used to generate energy, and the third
article deals with jet noise from high perform-
ance military aircraft. In many respects, these
two sources are at different ends of the spec-
trum. In some respects, wind turbine noise is a
relatively new source of noise. There is much that is not
understood, and there is some vigorous debate regarding the effects of this noise on humans. Nancy Timmerman and Geoff Leventhall have provided articles that review some of these issues and the surrounding debate. Nancy Timmerman describes some of the issues that have arisen in Massachusetts with wind tur- bines that have been installed and some of the health concerns that have been described in association with those turbines. Questions remain as to how to properly measure the noise and to characterize it in a manner that sheds light on any possible health issues. Geoff
Leventhall overviews some of the historical misinformation
6 Acoustics Today, July 2013