Echo

An echo is a sound that has travelled all the way to a distant wall, hill or mountain and come back, at considerable effort, to tell you what you just said.^[1]

Echoes contribute nothing new. Every echo on record has been entirely derivative of the original, and quieter, and later. For this reason no echo has ever been taken seriously in a debate, although none has ever lost one either.

The last word

It is not possible to have the last word with an echo. The current record attempt was made in a valley by a man who shouted “Stop it” for eleven hours. The valley shouted “Stop it” back for eleven hours and four seconds. The judges awarded the result to the valley on time.^[2]

Diminishing returns

Each repetition of an echo is quieter than the one before. Acousticians have measured the decline precisely:

• First echo: what you said.
• Second echo: what you said, but further away.
• Third echo: what you said, apparently from a neighbour.
• Fourth echo: unclear; possibly “hello”, possibly a sheep.
• Fifth echo: silence, which the echo insists is also what you said.

Where echoes live

Echoes are found in canyons, wells, tunnels, cathedrals and empty stairwells. They are rarely found in furnished rooms, where the cushions absorb them and do not give them back.

See also

• Mountain – a large thing for echoes to bounce off
• Cloud – absorbs echoes, says nothing
• Bat – an animal that uses echoes to find dinner
• Hiccup – a noise that repeats, but from inside
• Laugh track – an audience that repeats itself

References

1. Hollow, H. (1988). Again, Again. Canyon Press. p. 1, p. 1, p. 1.
2. Valley Records Board (2015). “Last Word: Result”. Repeated.
3. Reverb, R. (2000). “What Did You Say?”. Journal of Acoustics 4, 4, 4.