Screeching Sound of Peeling Tape
59 points by akshatjiwan 5 days ago | 15 comments

icosian 18 hours ago
For a long time after my daughter was born, I wasn't sure if she could hear or not. I tried to get her to react / turn her head / wake up to voice, music, claps... Nothing.

One day I was taping up a box behind her and I pulled out a length of packing tape. It made that awful screeching noise and she was startled. It was a repeatable result. Her hearing was fine, she was just super chilled about noise in general. I found her limit with a roll of tape.

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dmd 10 hours ago
These days infants' hearing (including my own two childrens') are tested at birth, without them having to participate in the process at all (they can even be asleep)! https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/children-an...
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awakeasleep 15 hours ago
Just where my mind went while reading the abstract. Babies hate this sound!
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mhb 15 hours ago
To them, it's like a baby crying.
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elteto 12 hours ago
That’s really cool. Scotch tape is just weird, peeling it also generates x-rays (in a vacuum):

https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/10/23/217918/x-rays-ma...

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qlm 20 hours ago
"The screeching of peeling tape is a familiar albeit annoying sound."

I don't find it annoying, I quite like it. The only time I've experienced "ASMR" was from somebody peeling tape next to me.

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ericyd 13 hours ago
Agree, it really depends on the tape for me. Painters tape has quite a nice sound as it's peeled
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klondike_klive 12 hours ago
I really like the doppler effect (?) of the sound as the tape gets longer.
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boothby 11 hours ago
Not the Doppler effect. The tone gets lower, the wavelength increases, with the increasing length of the resonating body.
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leni536 20 hours ago
Scotch tape just keeps on giving in science.
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OptionOfT 16 hours ago
I remember buying the Scotch Magic Tape, the matte one.

I was surprised that it didn't make the sound. Probably because it's a little bit more flexible?

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birdsongs 11 hours ago
I found "quiet" packing tape recently. I bought it, while highly skeptical, for my last move. It was barely more expensive. I don't recall seeing it before.

Super pleasant, did not make the rip crackle squeal sound at all.

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etrautmann 18 hours ago
This was a surprisingly satisfying and interesting read. Cool setup and delightfully random but well answered question.
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HelloUsername 17 hours ago
Can also be used for apple biting sound effect
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NackerHughes 10 hours ago
Why not, you know, bite an apple?
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