Ron
2010-10-27 01:28:38 UTC
I just bought the entire Science Fiction Theatre series on DVD. The
picture quality is bad, but it's still a chance to see these amazing
shows from the '50s. Each show has a sci-fi story that follows a kind
of opening that nobody would do today: the show's "host" would do a
short experiment with a variety of high (for the time) tech and low
tech items to demonstrate some principle in optics,
acoustics, electronics, biology, etc.
There were over 70 shows, but about five, six, of them explored sound,
sonics, and acoustics in some way that nobody would think about today;
a number of the stories also centtered around sound in some way. The
very first show had featured an "ultrasonic canon," a 20 kHz
transducer in the center of parabolic dish that set fire to the paint
on a wall from focused ultrasound. Pretty damn cool!
But there were at least two that confused me because nobody does
experiments like that any more. The first one had what looked like a
small lit light bulb exploded when the host hit a tuning fork near it
and another weird experiment where a tuning fork was touched to a
glass full of liquid. After a moment, the liquid became a crystallized
solid, just from vibrations from the fork.
I didn't know light bulbs could resonate, having a vacuum inside. And
what liquid crystallizes from sonic agitation? Anyone has any ideas,
comments, suggestions?
Ron
picture quality is bad, but it's still a chance to see these amazing
shows from the '50s. Each show has a sci-fi story that follows a kind
of opening that nobody would do today: the show's "host" would do a
short experiment with a variety of high (for the time) tech and low
tech items to demonstrate some principle in optics,
acoustics, electronics, biology, etc.
There were over 70 shows, but about five, six, of them explored sound,
sonics, and acoustics in some way that nobody would think about today;
a number of the stories also centtered around sound in some way. The
very first show had featured an "ultrasonic canon," a 20 kHz
transducer in the center of parabolic dish that set fire to the paint
on a wall from focused ultrasound. Pretty damn cool!
But there were at least two that confused me because nobody does
experiments like that any more. The first one had what looked like a
small lit light bulb exploded when the host hit a tuning fork near it
and another weird experiment where a tuning fork was touched to a
glass full of liquid. After a moment, the liquid became a crystallized
solid, just from vibrations from the fork.
I didn't know light bulbs could resonate, having a vacuum inside. And
what liquid crystallizes from sonic agitation? Anyone has any ideas,
comments, suggestions?
Ron