Subscribe now

Letter: Figure of speech

Published 5 December 2012

From Richard Price

Feedback has poked gentle fun at reports describing area in terms of football pitches or Wales, lengths as multiples of a London bus, and so on, but now you’re doing it in the story on tapping the electrical potential of ear cells (17 November, p 18).

The voltage in the cochlea is said to be “a fraction of that generated by an AA battery”. Readers are grown-up enough to cope with numbers and SI units.

• The range is 70 to 100 millivolts in the mammalian cochlea.

Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Issue no. 2894 published 8 December 2012

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

Sign up
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop