Subsonic Death Rays (was Re: day job)

[Magnus Danielson]

>>>>> "SC" == Sean Costello <costello at seanet.com> writes:

 SC> Magnus Danielson wrote:
 >> Hmm, this would surely make a neat sub-base. Set it up with a 6 Hz
 >> sinewave, sit down on it and save yourself a ride on the ammusement
 >> park. As you hit the self-resonance you would basically go accutely
 >> very sick and damn yourself for comming up with this idea. It could
 >> also be a very cruel prank on a colleague, but I advice against such
 >> things.

 SC> Speaking of which, does anyone on this list know anything about the
 SC> subsonic death ray that France supposedly developed?  This is the sort
 SC> of weird rumor that tends to be circulated among insane musician
 SC> circles, so I figured someone on this list might know about it. :) It
 SC> might actually have been a real item; it supposedly generated a highly
 SC> directional beam of sound at an extremely high amplitude, around 7 Hz -
 SC> the "resonant frequency of the body," so as to turn your innards to
 SC> jello.  If such a device was actually developed, my guess would be that
 SC> it worked by using ultrasonic sound, and relying on the beat frequency
 SC> between two sound sources.  Example: use two ultra-powerful tweeter
 SC> horns, one at 100,000 Hz, one at 100,007 Hz.  

Argh. 7 Hz, I just *knew* it was either of them, so I picked
one. Besides, you would notice ;)

 SC> Anyone know anything about this?  If it was brought up in William S.
 SC> Burroughs' interview of Jimmy Page, it HAS to be true. :)

Well, this is by no means new.

Here in Sweden a new such device has been built, so that you may send
a directed subsonic boom onto a person in order to temporarilly
disable them from anything possibly dangerous. FOA showed of such a
device in the national TV channel news, and they thought it could be
usefull in peace keeping missions, especially to control civilans.

I have heard about an old British military device that where intended
to work in the battle field.

 SC> Sean Costello

 SC> P.S.  For a slightly more useful application along the same lines, see
 SC> the description of the "Audio Spotlight" at
 SC> http://sound.media.mit.edu/~pompei/spotlight/.

 SC> P.P.S.  I think that more emails should have the phrase "Death Ray" in
 SC> the title.

Certainly. Especially as we are all getting our Magocrapial Atomic
Energy modular (also known as the Power Plant synth) soon. This is of
course a fresh retake on the rumbling success of the Telharmonicum,
but in a new, larger, improved and more powerfull version. One famous
reference installation is the Ignalina one, where as the Tjernobyl one
did not quite deal with the late nigth excercises.

The University that I worked for used to have their own!

Cheers,
Magnus