Each of us is unique. Police can identify a person by their fingerprints, but your voice has a print with loops and whorls, too. 

This morning I spoke with Mad Scientist Kent Williams about voice print analysis, the process where a computer analyzes and recognizes an individual's voice pattern.  And in a security situation, those computers can then grant access to information or perhaps... the super-duper secret secure facility of the master spys! 

When Kent calls me on the phone I recognize his voice... my brain does that. But how does a computer do that?

Kent demonstrated how sounds waves from our speech can shake a laser light (hooked to something like a drum head) which made a wiggly pattern everytime I spoke.  When I changed the pitch of my voice, the pattern changed shape and intensity.

We found that when you talk in a higher pitch, the tones makes a faster, shorter wavelength, whereas the lower tones are a longer, slower wavelength. So each pattern would be specific to each person's voice... and everyone has a different voice.

Kent said this is the equivalence of a fingerprint.

Want to learn more about sound waves? I found this awesome retro science piece on Sound Waves here:

So next time you go to the movies and see someone sneaking into the super secret secure facility, you'll know how the computers recognize James Bond or Dr. Evil, or even you if you work in a super-duper secret spy facility.

If you have a science question, ask the KY3 StormTeam here