• Question: how do you take the photos of the sound waves in peoples bodies? and can sound waves from the out side of your body reach the inside ,like when I listen to music would you be able to take pictures of it inside if me? Thankyou.

    Asked by ur local mandem to Dan on 6 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Daniel Fovargue

      Daniel Fovargue answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      We use MRI to see waves moving through the person. So, if we are curious about someone’s liver, for example, we put them in the MRI machine and then use something to vibrate near their liver. Its like when your phone vibrates, just a bit stronger. But then we can see these vibrations moving through the person’s liver using MRI.

      I think your music would have to be very loud and very bassy to see it with MRI. We use very low frequencies to do this. Generally speaking though, the sound waves that you hear when you listen to music definitely will move through your body, but probably are not strong enough to see with MRI. That’s why we have to use something that vibrates and press it right up against the person.

      Thanks for the great question 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: Mohan

    Mohan commented on :

    Ultrasound machines transmit and receive sound waves through the body to build up a picture. The machine transmits a beam of sound into the body, where a portion of the beam will be reflect back up from different tissues at different depths. The machine times how long it takes between sending the beam and receiving the reflected sound waves to build up a picture of what the body looks like under the beam transmitter.

    Sound waves will travel through the body, different frequencies travel at different speeds and get attenuated (absorbed) at different rates. Unfortunately our ultrasound transmitters and receivers can only detect a very narrow band of frequencies so probably can’t use your music to build up a picture of your body!

  • Photo: ur local mandem

    ur local mandem commented on :

    thankyou