These Whale Calls Appear to Break Physics, but the Truth Is Even Weirder

While tracking whale calls near Massachusetts, oceanographer John Spiesberger noticed that the software he was using was clocking speeds for whale calls greater than the speed limit for sound traveling in seawater. Spiesberger, of the University of Pennsylvania, initially thought there was something wrong with his program. After all, if the software wasn’t to blame, it would mean that those whale calls were “breaking” physics. It turns out there wasn’t anything wrong with his coding, nor was there any violation of physics: what he was seeing was even weirder than that. The exceptional speeds seemed to have come from a physical effect caused by the hydrophone receiving not only the direct sound wave but also its echo, reflected against the ocean’s surface. Combined, these signals make it appear as if the whale calls went supersonic, when in reality, the observed phenomenon is an effect of wave interference, an unexpected finding predicted by Einstein’s theory of special relativity. “Most of us don’t hear a whale call and think, ‘Wow, look at the special theory of relativity in action,’” Spiesberger said, who recently published his findings with co-author Eugene Terray, from the Wood