Tympanic membrane retraction tensa. Tympanic membrane retraction is fairly common and has been observed in one quarter of a population of British school children. Retraction of both eardrums is less common than having a retraction in just one ear. It is more common in children with cleft palate. Tympanic membrane retraction also occurs in adults. Attempts have been made to categorise the extent of tympanic membrane retraction though the validity of these classifications is limited. The majority of tympanic membrane retractions do not cause any symptoms. Some cause hearing loss by restricting sound-induced vibrations of the eardrum. Permanent conductive hearing loss can be
Dirac membrane Dirac membrane A model of a charged membrane introduced by Paul Dirac in 1962. Dirac's original motivation was to explain the mass of the muon as an excitation of the ground state corresponding to an electron. Anticipating the birth of string theory by almost a decade, he was the first to introduce what is now called a type of Nambu–Goto action for membranes. In the Dirac membrane model the repulsive electromagnetic forces on the membrane are balanced by the contracting ones coming from the positive tension. In the case of the spherical membrane, classical equations of motion imply that the