That vase
I saw the link to the Pompeii vase has sound story on Digg, but fought back the urge to blog on how nonsensical the story was, because it has so many holes in it that I’d be here all day. Nevertheless a lot of intelligent people seem eager to believe this April Fool story.
I wonder if the film had been in English would so many people be taken in?
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I fell for it! It must have been the French, they seem so assured. I feel somewhat sheepish now.
A couple of years back a TV show here in the States, “CSI”, had a major plot twist when it used a clay pot that the victim had been turning on a wheel at the time one of the other characters had been speaking to him to amazingly recover that conversation in the grooves of the clay. Oh yes, I called ze bullshit on that one.
do you think it is none sense?
is there any possibility it has real value? because it seens amzing should it be true!
Reasons I’m sceptical, apart from the webpage by the writer of the film saying it’s a hoax, are down to how vinyl works. The needle bounces in the groove over a bumpy surface. It’s this tiny bumps that encode the sound. This causes problems because:
The needle has to be a pin point.
You can’t do that with steel, a steel blade cutting a groove would have to be quite thick. This means the bumps would have to be larger and the pot spinning at a high speed. If the sound comes from one groove then the pot is spinning at less than 1 rpm, because the sound clip is slightly longer than a minute.
The arm holding the needle has to be rigid.
It’s the needle bumping up and down that sends the sound (eventually) to the amplifier on a hi-fi. If the arm isn’t rigid then the signal will be lost in the noise of the arm tremors. A hand held needle wouldn’t be rigid enough.
The surface of the vase isn’t what was gouged.
After the potter scratches the groove, the pot is then probably going to be glazed or else dipped in a slip. This will coat the surface of the pot. Unless the slip or glaze is completely uniform over the groove those bumps will be erased.
The pot was fired.
Vinyl was moulded or pressed into shape. The pot, after it’s been coated in a glaze or slip would be fired. The heat would transform the surface of the pot to it’s shiny appearance. It would also expand under the heat. These aren’t major distortions of shape, but they’d be big enough to erase any sound.I’m sure there are plenty more problems that other people can spot. It is a shame because it would be nice to hear a voice from the past, but there are simply too many ways it couldn’t work to take it seriously.
The thing is that it is true that sounds can be recorded on tapestry. So why not pottery. We have just not figured out how to tune in to the frequency. It not science fiction but science.
The frequency you’d need to tune would be the one that the CIA uses to beam instructions into the tooth fillings of shambling urban derelicts.
The thing is that it is true that sounds can be recorded on tapestry.
I’ve spent some time searching and I can’t find how sound could be recorded onto tapestry. Can you give an example?
So why not pottery?
It’s a very different material. Clay is not homogenous. Also, unlike tapestry, it’s not coated in other layers of clay or glaze after being shaped and it’s not heated to hundreds of degrees centigrade to change its physical properties.
We have just not figured out how to tune in to the frequency.
What is being proposed in the Belgian piece is a mechanical recording. There is not a carrier frequency, the sound is based on the rotation of the carrier material, in this case the pot. If the pot is spun twice as fast the sound is twice as high in frequency.
An experiment you could try is covering a 7″ single with a thin layer of resin. Leave the resin to harden and then play the record to a friend and see if they can recognise the tune. This is the problem we have with glaze on the pot.
I really don’t think yelling at a lump of clay will leave a measurable impression on its surface. If this impression is dampened by passing through a human arm and a knife first it will make even less of an impression. The clunk of the kiln door shutting or roar of the hot air swirling round the pots would be far noisier.
People keep quoting this is a April Fools Joke and link to the site but no where on the site does it mention “April” “Fools” or “Joke“
Where are you getting the quote of something in french translates in to April Fools Joke?
Just curious.
Thanks Mike
It has changed since I linked to it.
If you view the source code of the page you’ll find a section of text marked ecrits_secrets secret writings. This reads:
translation:
When I visited Poisson d’avril was in big letters on the page. I can see how now it’s more difficult to spot.