The best way to track a moving target in the dark is not to point the center of the flashlight beam directly at it. Instead, it seems to be easier to accomplish the task if the light beam is directed slightly to the right or left of the center of the target. This surprising finding emerges from a study on bats carried out by Dr. Nachum Ulanovsky and Dr. Yossi Yuval from the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which was published in the scientific journal Science
Orientation with the help of resonance - by activating sonar - is a type of active sensing: the animal must transmit signals to receive back information about its environment. Similar to the way in which sonar systems installed in submarines enable the detection of enemy ships, bats also send out sound waves and listen to the echo that returns to them. The changes in the returning sound waves provide them with information about the type of objects in the area and their exact location. The scientists examining the sonar of animals have a unique research tool at their disposal: the mathematical formulas used by submarine engineers are, in principle, also suitable for animals. The scientists who were based on this tradition of using mathematical thinking to study the sonar, developed a theory from which it appears that the efficiency of detecting the objects increases, as the efficiency with which its location is located decreases. The practical meaning of this theory for an insect bat, for example, is that to catch an insect in a thicket of vegetation, the best strategy would be to focus the full power of the beam on it. On the other hand, when a large moth flies in the open air - a prey that is easy to detect but sometimes difficult to locate its exact position - the calculations show that the most sensitive method for detecting changes in its position is to shift the beam from the center of the target and utilize the maximum slope of the beam.
Do the bats actually behave according to these theoretical rules? In other words, are they able to adapt their sonar system to changing situations? To answer the question, the research group led by Dr. Ulanovsky, which also included Prof. Cynthia Moss and research student Ben Falk from the University of Maryland, trained bats to locate a large, black ball randomly placed in a completely dark room - and land on it. In the dark conditions of the laboratory, the bats could navigate using only resonance. A system of special microphones around the walls of the room followed the sound waves emitted by the bats, and two video cameras sensitive to infrared radiation recorded their XNUMXD flight paths.
The fruit bats found, which are studied in Dr. Ulanovsky's laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science, use a unique resonance system. Unlike the smaller bat species, which produce ultrasonic chirps at a constant rate, these bats make double clicking sounds. The scientists believed that these double taps would help decipher the tracking strategies employed by the bats. Indeed, they found that there was a regular pattern in these sounds: the first pair of clicks was directed to the left and then to the right, while the second pair was directed to the right and then to the left. Until landing, the bats continued to launch the sound beams towards the sides of the ball, exactly as efficiently as the formula predicted. That is, the animals acted very efficiently, exactly according to the theoretical calculation.
Active sensing is very common in our world: sonar and radar devices are used to navigate ships and planes; Dolphins and whales navigate the oceans using resonance; Dogs track by sniffing, and our eyes move from side to side to see our surroundings. Bacteria also use a form of active sensing to move towards desirable substances and avoid harmful substances. Dr. Ulanovski and Dr. Yuval believe that the "sensing according to the slope" strategy, which is good for bats, may also be useful for other animals.
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Another one:
Thank you for the update on the subject of the article, but I disagree with your opinion that revealing and covering up lies is the practice of science.
The fact is that in the original article you found a more complete description and in general, scientific articles - especially those that describe experiments and expect their claims to be accepted and pass the test of frequency - try to be as detailed as necessary.
The reason why I thought that aiming the edge of the beam towards the "most reflective" point is indeed a logical strategy is that in an active sonar - if this point is not included in the "illumination range" it is not at all certain that there will be a reflection from the body to the sender of the signal.
Edge detection strategy is more suitable for passive "illumination".
Each article discovers a trick and covers tricks. That's how science works.
I did read the article and the maximum slope is aimed at the center of the target and not as you initially suggested. As you say in the ball it is a definite point.
On another thought - there is also logic in the approach of directing the edge of the beam to the center of the target.
I don't know if "center" is the right word. Regarding a ball it is quite defined but regarding other bodies it is a matter of the shape of the body and I tend to believe that the place where the edges of the beam are directed is the point from which there is maximum return.
There is a problem with articles that reveal slander and cover slander.
Continued…
It is quite possible that the elf in question uses this method here.
Because the amount of noise increases as the slope increases.
From Yachal: (apologies for the "-")
At the time I was working in the field of biological sensors.
It turns out that many of these utilize a stochastic resonance algorithm.
That is to say that a certain addition of background noise to the signal and appropriate parameters for mixing, brings the required signal into resonance and amplifies it. The main benefit is for dual-mode sensors.
In Google SR - Stochastic resonance
There are many studies in nervous systems from this point of view.
Another one:
I have no way of knowing what they really did because I don't subscribe to Science.
Following your words, I searched and found the abstract of the original article and it says that they direct the edges of the beam to the target. Is it to the center of the target? It is not clear from the abstract. Maybe it appears in the full text and maybe it really does appear in the full text that the bats did not do edge detection.
Did you read the full text?
Michael - your interpretation of the article is wrong. The researchers clearly showed that the bats do not do edge detection, that is, they do not direct the center of the beam to the border of the target (as in edge detection) but direct the maximum gradient of the transmitted beam to the center of the target.
The second interpretation (by the way) is also wrong because other bats actually direct the center to the target. The turning of the flashlight away from the target by humans is intended to reduce blinding when the eye undergoes adaptation, the flashlight will be pointed directly at the target. This has nothing to do with positioning strategy. Bats, on the other hand, do not suffer from an adaptation problem because they transmit the energy (they are not surprised by it).
I absolutely agree with the last point. As soon as it is clear that the non-commutative operators have different bases and we add to this the fact that according to quantum theory the collapse of the wave function is measured on an eigenstate, i.e. one of the basis functions, we accept that no matter what the number of measurements we make we do not know more about the wave function than the uncertainty principle allows .
Note In the attached article, Aharonov (and I think Weidman) developed a theory of "weak measurements" that allow the wave function to be measured without collapsing it into one of its eigenstates.
There is a joke about a man who is asked why he speaks without thinking and he replies "How am I supposed to know what I'm thinking before I hear what I'm saying?".
You can say that in a certain sense this is what happened to me in this discussion - not in terms of knowing what I think but in terms of knowing how to explain it.
I read my last response and realized that the discussion would have been much shorter if I had better emphasized the point that in quantum theory it is not about simultaneous measurement of the properties but about simultaneous knowledge of them - even if this knowledge is obtained by many measurements!
All the examples given to explain why the idea of uncertainty is not new - talked about only one measurement and in fact did not refer at all to the possibility that knowledge of all the properties can be achieved by several measurements.
Therefore - beyond the fact that I mentioned that these examples do not deal with probability - they do not deal with the main uniqueness of the uncertainty principle which is the matter of knowing at the same time.
I mentioned this fact in different ways and said that it is that the properties cannot be defined at the same time but for some reason I did not take advantage of the enormous clarifying power of the impossibility of finding out the data even with as many measurements as we want.
Here is what Wikipedia says about the uncertainty principle:
"Heisenberg's determination that the uncertainty principle is not a problem of measurement, which may be solved with the perfection of methods and instruments, but a basic and essential property of nature, had a profound effect on physics and the philosophy of mind. In this field of mind, it raises difficult and deep problems of interpretation, since It seems that reality can no longer be known accurately. These interpretations are still disputed among physicists and philosophers. This debate has made the uncertainty principle one of the most famous physical results.
Many science fiction books use the principle of uncertainty to create worlds that seem imaginary and in which the principle comes to fruition on an everyday level.
The principle is used a lot by the followers of the New Age in their goal to "prove" that science is not able to reach all the answers. Religious preachers use it in a similar way.
It is important to see that the "uncertainty principle" does not refer to certainty or probability at all, but to the accuracy and resolution that exists in the physical world by its very structure. For this reason, Heisenberg resented the fact that his discovery was called a name that evokes so many claims that have nothing to do with measurement or the values of measurable parameters - "uncertainty".
This condition that you state simply, "and for everything that you want to measure with waves, you should choose the appropriate waves" is simply a certain wave-specific realization of the uncertainty principle. I will repeat the main point again: the uncertainty principle is a mathematical result of the algebra of operators used in quantum theory. Its simple realization is the fact that a plane wave is described by ( exp(ikx) where k is the wave number.
A second point that must be understood is that the uncertainty principle in itself has nothing to do with measurement, the principle shows us that non-commutative operators do not have convergent bases. To talk about measurement, it should be added that according to quantum theory, at the moment of measurement, the wave function collapses on one of the eigenstates, but note that before performing the quantum measurement, the wave function has the uncertainty principle.
You may be confused with the popular presentation of the uncertainty principle as it was first presented by Heisenberg (after whom it is named) because a measurement involves sending a photon while this changes the state of the system so that we cannot know for sure what its state was before the measurement. This is just a popular representation of the Uncertainty Principle.
Probably.
And for everything you want to measure using waves, you should choose the most appropriate waves and there is no fear that measuring one quantity will harm the possibility of measuring another quantity or its previously measured value because these are problems that only appear in quantum theory (as a result of the uncertainty principle).
The mathematical developments of wave theory have a meaning of measurement. From the wave packet is derived the ability to examine a fiscal object of a given size. This is precisely a measurement, but not in the accepted context of quantum theory. For example, a wave packet with a certain spectral width is scattered on a molecule and the reflected wave packet is examined. This is precisely a measurement of the properties of the molecule using the waves, but it is not a measurement in the sense of quantum theory (there is no collapse of the wave function).
I would not use the term certainty here, although this is a private example of the principle of uncertainty, but it is definitely the ability of a certain wave packet to be used as a measuring tool for an object.
sympathetic:
But that's exactly what I'm saying.
The mathematical developments of wave theory have no meaning of uncertainty outside of quantum theory and therefore uncertainty is a property of quantum theory and not of any other theory.
The Uncertainty Principle got its name when quantum theory showed that even particles "have wavy properties" before that it was not a sweeping principle these were simply a property in Fourier space (if you want a special case).
A wave is not talked about in terms of location, so the question of uncertainty did not arise. Those that can be asked is what length scale can be tested by spending waves of a given length. Since the technology was in its infancy (the laser had not yet been invented) this question had no practical meaning and no one thought to call the property that the Fourier transform of a Gaussian is Gaussian - a principle.
The probabilistic significance comes only when we reach the measurement of properties of the system, something that was not discussed in this context in wave theory.
sympathetic:
I think a clarification is needed regarding my previous response.
I said that you are not supposed to claim that the uncertainty principle is a result of the formulas.
In these words, I referred to the uncertainty principle as a physical phenomenon and not as a "principle deduced from mathematics" whereas it is possible that you see it as a conclusion from mathematics and in that case your claim is legitimate (because it does not conclude on physics itself but only on its description).
My words were based on something else that Feynman said on the same page of his book - something that indicates that he sees this as a physical reality and not as a mathematical conclusion:
You may say that this is because there are some internal wheels which we have not looked at closely enough. No, there are no internal wheels; nature, as we understand it today behaves in such a way that it is fundamentally impossible to make a precise prediction of exactly what will happen in a given experiment.
I remember another paragraph that I can't find at the moment where he says that maybe one day someone will succeed in conducting an experiment that measures both sizes at the same time, but to date no one has succeeded in doing so - this shows, once again - that he draws the conclusion from the experience and not from the formulas.
What has been written so far was written before I saw your last comment.
Following this response, I would like to reiterate:
1. As far as I know, no one used the phrase "uncertainty principle" before quantum theory.
2. Uncertainty is a matter of probability - what exactly is probability in wave theory? What question of certainty or uncertainty arises here? Is there another place where you take the absolute value of the square of the complex amplitude of the projection of the wave function on the measurement operator and interpret it as a probability? This will seem very surprising to me in light of the fact that it took a long time for them to understand that this is what should be done in quantum theory.
Michael
Beautiful, after all, you are human too. Don't be ashamed of it! To me it is positive.
The claim that Feynman makes is about a particle (with emphasis on a particle). Until quantum theory was developed, a particle was described as a point in space with a finite velocity, quantum theory showed that this could not be done.
In this respect, the uncertainty principle was known long before in wave theory and there is nothing mysterious about it.
The physical content of quantum theory lies in the use of operators, from which mathematically the uncertainty principle derives. The description of nature as I would call it is in the use of operators to define reality and not in the mathematical implications regarding the operators.
sympathetic:
It is quite possible that I am wrong, but in this case the mistake is anything but factual.
As I said, I did not study this topic from the ground up but I read what people wrote about it.
Therefore - when I say that Feynman said the same thing - I rely on what he said factually.
(I'm sorry for messing up the name last time - I was afraid I was spelling it wrong, but I was too lazy to get up again and take the book out of the closet in another room).
I will quote exactly what is written at the top of the second paragraph on page 2-6 in volume I of the book The Feynman Lectures on Physics:
Quantum mechanics has many aspects. In the first place, the idea that a particle has a definite location and definite speed is no longer allowed....
that's what I said.
Besides, I said that uncertainty (in terms of Hebrew or any other language) is a phrase that has meaning only in an environment of probability.
I am aware of the matter with the commutativity of the matrices.
It seems to me that you are the one who claimed that the purpose of physics is to find an efficient description of reality, while I claimed that this is not its purpose - its purpose in my view is really to discover reality, only that it cannot do so, and therefore it remains with half our desire in its hand - only with an efficient description of reality - but in light of This is your definition of the role of physics - you are the last one who should use the claim that a physical phenomenon is a "result" of the formulas and all you are allowed to say in this regard is that the formulas describe it well.
I was simply trying to convey the feeling that I understood formed in the minds of the experts on whom I based myself - a feeling that is based, obviously, on all the mathematics they knew and the experience they had.
I'm sorry, but in the last discussion you are factually wrong. The principle of non-admissions arises mathematically from the lack of interchangeability of operators. Regarding the discussed case, it is about the lack of exchange that appears in the Fourier space between the momentum operator
whose eigenvalue behaves like the wave number k and the position x since a plane wave is defined by a double amplitude
exp(ikx) From this it follows that also in Fourier space there is an uncertainty principle. There is no misspecification in the principle of uncertainty. There is misspecification regarding the measurement of a quantum system. The issues are related but not equivalent.
And if it's a correction then the correct spelling of the Nobel laureate's name is Feynman
Michael
I'm sorry, but in the last discussion you are factually wrong. The principle of non-admissions arises mathematically from the lack of interchangeability of operators. Regarding the discussed case, it is about the lack of exchange that appears in the Fourier space between the momentum operator
whose eigenvalue behaves like the wave number k and the position x since a plane wave is defined by a double amplitude
exp(ikx) From this it follows that also in Fourier space there is an uncertainty principle. There is no misspecification in the principle of uncertainty. There is misspecification regarding the measurement of a quantum system. The issues are related but not equivalent.
On the other hand, maybe I was a bit hasty in my previous response because what I said appears exactly as I also said it in Feynman's book The Feinmann Lectures on Physics which I wrote my previous response and I forgot that I also read it.
He also emphasizes the fact that in the elementary particles the properties we are trying to measure simply do not have defined properties (and for example they do not have position and momentum that are defined at the same time).
Do not know.
I don't think I'll ever get deep enough to decide between the opinions of two Nobel laureates on quantum theory.
I really can't deal with this argument.
Since I never studied the subject in an orderly manner but - as you mentioned - from sources and books of the type I mentioned - I could only rely on what was said in them and what was said in them does not always include the entire development of the subject from the ground up so that at certain points I could not but believe what I was reading.
If the sources I read were wrong then I was also wrong following them.
I can say in my defense that the books I read were recommended to me by recognized and serious researchers in quantum theory, but as mentioned - I cannot guarantee the correctness of what is said in them.
Well, since there's really no point in scientific arguments anymore, I'll summarize:
I rely on the basic textbook in quantum mechanics (Cohen Tanuji), written by a Nobel laureate in physics, and you rely on a popular science book written by a philosopher.
Moshe:
interesting.
This "mystification" also appears in David Albert's book Quantum Mechanics and Experience and finds its expression in the superposition that is created as a result of a measurement and which determines exactly the expected distribution of the results of the next measurement.
This is also how it appears in Wikipedia (the fact that I often refer to it does not make it inaccurate) and none of this detracts from the fact that the Fourier transform is involved in the matter and not even from the fact that the calculations also have addition operations.
Michael:
The debate has long since gotten out of hand. I will finish my part:
To sanctify the uncertainty principle is a mystification of quantum mechanics. In the first lesson of the quantum course, the uncertainty principle is proven from properties of the Fourier transform. There are those who prefer to turn the uncertainty principle into an axiom and continue from there. In any case, the principle is also valid for wave mechanics (eg electromagnetism) and if you prefer to depend on the words of scholars, open Cohen-Tanoji chapter one and see black on white.
Ghost:
You are right - I was wrong too.
I always heard people say that bats are blind and I didn't bother to check.
Now I think we should also check the other animals involved in this context - fish and rats.
In principle, it doesn't matter much because their orientation - especially at night - is based on sound, but it's really worth being precise.
Michael
I think Yair meant this (from Wikipedia):
Megabats have a well-developed visual cortex and show good visual acuity, while microbats rely on echolocation for navigation and finding prey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat
And it says there:
Although the eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, none of them are blind. Vision is used to navigate microbats especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation. It has even been discovered that some species are able to detect ultraviolet light.
It seems to me that we were both wrong or at least I was, it turns out that bats do see and they are not blind at all.
Ghost:
I would not have talked about seeing bats if Yair B had not decidedA comment that he responded to in another article Attacking me on this topic as if it was relevant.
I simply wanted to avoid a similar attack and that's why I mentioned the bats that see (it's clear to me that this makes the wording difficult, but it turns out that you can't please everyone at the same time. I recommend that you simply ignore the fact that I mentioned bats that see).
I understand what you meant and that is what I tried to answer when I said that I am not aware of any use that the bats (or other blind creatures I mentioned) make of their eyes.
In fact - the existence of useless organs in various animals is one of the best evidences for evolution and the absence of an intelligent planner.
Michael
I don't understand what kind of bats you are talking about. It was stated in the article that the bats use
in resonance for orientation in the environment.
"...bats also send out sound waves and listen to the echo that returns to them.
The changes in the returning sound waves provide them with information about the type of objects in the area
and their exact location."
I don't know what those eyes are used for and I wanted to understand, that was my intention in question 19.
Moshe:
I am not in control of the subject, but the fact that a laser beam can be very narrow and at any frequency and be used both for accurate measurement of position and for accurate measurement of speed seems to me to contradict your claim.
Be that as it may, the uncertainty principle of quantum theory is considered a fundamental/definitional problem and not a problem of difficulty in measurement and this is the principle that received the name "uncertainty principle".
Michael:
Maybe I wasn't clear, but even a beam with as high a frequency as you want won't solve the problem. According to the same uncertainty theorem, a spatially narrow beam will always have a wide dispersion (uncertainty in energy) in the frequency domain. This is a mathematical principle, and does not follow from the situation I presented.
Ghost:
It was mentioned here that there are bats that see so I assume you are talking about the ones that don't see.
Regarding them - as regarding certain types of rat and certain types of cave and deep fish - I am not aware of any use they make of light or eyes.
Michael
Do bats have some kind of dielectric material in their eye that absorbs light when they use resonance?
That is, do they also use their eyes in this way or is the detection of the objects done with the help of waves
Voice and ears, and the eyes are used for other things?
Moshe:
All uses of the term "uncertainty" in the contexts you mentioned are borrowed uses.
The term "uncertainty principle" was coined in the context of quantum theory and the fact that in different environments with similar mathematics there are parallel phenomena (which I think is wrong to call them uncertainty) is of course not surprising.
There is no doubt that the link you brought is interesting, but even there - the fact is that the original name is different and the author of the article decided (and he says himself that it is his decision) - just because of the mathematical analogy - to call it "the musician's uncertainty principle".
In situations of using a narrow beam, there is no principle that says that it is forbidden to use a high frequency and obtain high accuracy in the estimation of the speed.
In quantum theory it is about the fact that, in principle, there is no way to reach the desired precision (and in fact more than that - it is claimed that it is not a question of difficulty of measurement but of the lack of definite existence of the measured quantity)
Michael:
Subject, or not subject, is an uncertainty almost identical to that of quantum mechanics. In an early interpretation of quantum mechanics (see for example Dirac), a similar example is used with an electron as a target and a photon instead of a sound beam. This is not an artificial example, but a common natural phenomenon.
And by the way, an interesting link to the principle of uncertainty in the context of music:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/uncertainty.html
And regarding a narrow beam and the ability to detect speed - this is exactly the heart of the matter. A narrow beam cannot have a well-defined energy (wavelength) (the width of the beam must be greater than the wavelength), therefore the reflection of such a beam is limited by the ability to estimate the Doppler shift (for example).
By the way, there is also no connection between the width of the beam and the fact that it is waves (it is also possible to shoot bullets in a narrow or wide beam) and in general it does not belong to the subject of the article (which did not talk about the width of the beam)
Moshe:
And that's not the issue.
We can create uncertainty for ourselves in many artificial ways and it doesn't belong.
I'm also not clear why you think a narrow beam reduces our ability to detect the speed. In my opinion, no ability to detect speed is lost as a result of using a narrow beam.
Michael - Please, here is an uncertainty according to Fourier:
Let's describe a situation in which a bat wants to know the position and speed (momentum) of an insect. If the bat sends sound waves with a well-defined energy, it will be able to know (for example, by the Doppler effect) the speed of the insect (low uncertainty), but not its position (high uncertainty). If it sends well-placed sound waves (narrow beam) will be able to know the position but not the velocity. There is a limit to the ability to measure position and velocity together. Although this is a similar situation to quantum mechanics, there is nothing quantum here. Planck's constant plays no role but only the wave nature of sound.
DP:
What exactly bothers you?
The authors of the study also thought about this before testing it with bats.
In general - has anyone here expressed dissatisfaction with the research?
Moshe:
It just doesn't belong.
The Uncertainty Principle is a principle of quantum theory and it talks about the uncertainty that arises regarding one variable when another is measured.
Uncertainty - you'll be surprised - it's a matter of uncertainty - that is - of probability. When there is no probability there is no uncertainty.
Obviously there is a connection between the wave equations that also describe quantum theory and this principle but can you point to any uncertainty in sound waves or water waves or string waves?
You can't because the word has no meaning!
The use of the term in the Fourier transform is by way of borrowing.
Michael, you should expand your knowledge a bit before you dig up "facts".
According to your favorite scientific source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform
Under the Uncertainty principle section
Anyone who is not satisfied with the article, I have one thing to say - it's easy to tell in retrospect.
We'll see you think about it before the findings of the bats. After the findings it is much clearer and also seems much more logical to do so, of course.
Ariel:
I also think they made a compromise here on clarity for the sake of the joke.
However - I did not comment on this because the claim is actually true even though they did not explain and justify it.
When a body is stationary - it is easier to discover its location (this, of course, only on the condition that its existence is recognized at all because as mentioned - movement helps to recognize its existence).
The point is that when it is at rest there is no point in going back and identifying its position because it is stationary but when it is in motion its position changes in an unknown way and therefore repeated identification of the position is necessary.
By the way - the very act of sending the beam to the borders of the body indicates that there is already an assessment of its location (otherwise they wouldn't know where to direct the beam) and what they are trying to measure is the change.
And one more thing, Moshe:
The uncertainty principle is a principle of quantum theory and not of any wave theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
Michael, thanks for the reference, by the way:
"The efficiency of object detection increases, as the efficiency with which its location is located decreases"
I think this wording is very confusing and wrong, because the article clearly demonstrates that precisely with the help of this method, the bat manages to identify the location of the target in a more efficient and accurate way, the exact opposite of the explanation given.
Moshe:
In my opinion, this is exactly what I am saying and it was said there in many different ways.
How do you think the "maximum slope of the fund" is used? Which fund anyway - the one being sent or the one returning?
The bat only has control over the slope of the beam sent (in fact - also in his favor - it is better not to control the returning beam because it should reflect the environment for him and not his will).
And what is a "gradient" anyway?
In my opinion, the meaning is that "straight" is to the center of the body and "slope" is the amount of deviation from this direction. The maximum slope that still sends a ray to the body and not just to the jaw in a direction that doesn't belong is the one where the ray is sent to the edge of the body.
Michael: It seems to me that your interpretation regarding the disclosure of the location is wrong. The article implies "... and utilizing the maximum slope of the foundation". It is probably a triangulation of the reflected echo from the target.
Ariel: Regarding the "uncertainty principle" - this is not a phenomenon that is unique to quantum mechanics but to wave theory in general and it is related to the behavior of a signal in relation to its Fourier transform.
Assuming that it is indeed a matter of triangulation, then it is not a question of the uncertainty principle of waves to another tradeoff.
incidentally:
Your words are not correct.
The light reflection of the flashlight almost never dazzles and in general - glare is a feature of the visual system that has adapted itself to the dark and is suddenly required to operate in the light.
This has no parallel in the experiment with the bat whose localization system always works on the basis of the sounds it itself produces and not on a basis dependent on the environment such as the level of natural lighting.
Ariel:
I also had this association. Of course the things have nothing to do with each other, but in my opinion the author of the article really intended to evoke this association.
In general - this fact is also reminiscent of what happens in the vision system which manages to detect bodies in motion better than stationary bodies (this is also the source of our tendency to freeze in place in the face of a predator that we feel we cannot escape from).
As in the case of identifying the boundaries of the object - which is the change of the signal on the axes of the direction space - so also in the case of movement - which is the change of the signal over the time axis - it is about the fact that it is easier to detect changing things than constant things.
The fact that change over the timeline is more receptive than stagnation on the timeline is also reflected in the solutions we find to the problems of focusing attention. The turn signals of cars (the winkers) utilize this principle.
"The efficiency of object detection increases, as the efficiency with which its location is located decreases"
In short, the bats discovered quantum theory before us!!
"This surprising finding" - what is so surprising!? After all, anyone who has used a flashlight in a very dark place, knows that as soon as he directs the light to the center of the bone, a lot of light is returned to his eyes, (which is unusual, because he is in a dark room) and therefore it is difficult to see the bone.
Really surprising.. That's why they had to watch bats?
It seems that the wording is intended to increase the scope of the article.
According to the scriptures - it was not the study of bats that led to the conclusion about the best strategy, but theoretical calculations.
The study was designed to check if the bats are acting in a manner consistent with these calculations and found that they are.
It is also quite clear because if an object has already been discovered and you want to identify its exact location - the best way to do this is by a mechanism that locates exactly where its borders are.
In the border area, the highest contrast between the sound reflections is obtained because part of the sound is reflected from the observed object and part is reflected from the background.
This is an operation that is also accepted in image processing and is called Edge Detection
It is also activated in our brain - in the visual processing center.