Brainteaser

[scroll down for answer]

In the ‘70s, Memorex ran a commercial with Ella Fitzgerald, (or maybe it was Ellen DeGeneres, I can’t quite remember which) singing a note so powerfully that the sound shattered a wine glass. Then they played a recording of her singing the same note on Memorex tape and it shattered another wine glass.

My sister and I were amazed. We took turns screaming at our mother's good wine glasses to see if we could accomplish the same thing. Luckily, we were unsuccessful in breaking her wedding crystal. What the heck were we thinking, anyway?

This brings us to this week’s brainteaser.

What is so fragile that it can be shattered simply by mentioning its name?

The answer is SILENCE!

Our winner is . . .

Jim Hennigan
Greenville, SC

Here's what he wrote . . .

I REALLY want to win one of those bottle poppers, Bird. It's too late for Christmas, but I'm going to be persistent if not verbose. I may even buy your secretary a pie if it means getting a shot at one of those ultimate stocking stuffers.

For now, in lieu of apple pie, let me win you over with some advice on your singing career. Specifically, here's what you were doing wrong in your childhood attempts to shatter glass:

(1) Glass is simply much too strong. Try shattering a wine glass in your (gloved) fingers. Not easy. Now imagine doing the same with the puny little bands of your vocal cords.

(2) Coupling acoustic energy from larynx-to-air-to-glass is highly inefficient due to large impedance mismatches; by contrast, marching troops couple very efficiently to bridge platforms.

(3) In glass shattering attempts, resonance or no resonance, the glass structure finds other ways to dissipate energy short of fracturing. Remember the playground swing in which successive small but well-timed swings sent your sister sailing higher and higher? And the tales of going "over the top" when the process went critical? Alas! it never happened, because other dynamic processes supervened ("Gee, Mom, we were just playing") before the longed-for loop could occur.

That doesn't mean it's not possible, though. The technique is simple.

A) You find somebody with perfect pitch and leather lungs.

2) You get a crystal glass and tap it with a spoon to determine its natural frequency of vibration (this varies with the glass).

iv) Have the singer let loose with precisely the same note (typically F above middle C).

Finally, when he or she is dead-on pitchwise, the glass will commence to resonate, i.e., vibrate.

FIFTH: Crank up the V. Amplify it to maybe 92, 94 decibels for cheap glass; less if you've got Grandma's Baccarat crystal. Crystal is more vulnerable than ordinary glass because it has more internal structure, which allows waves to propagate. (Generally, the better the crystal, the less volume you'll need -- which just proves how screwed up we are as a nation when it comes to quality control.)

With some luck, voila, you'll have instant ground glass.

(Remember, those Memorex commercials were not about how LOUD they could reproduce noise. They were all about how accurately they could reproduce the noice -- when amplified.)

Please do not pass this around indiscriminately, Bird, lest it give our Homeland Security people something else to worry about and defend. No amount of duct tape or plastic wrap can stop the kind of scourge of perfect pitch. And I'd hate for this e-mail to be the reason Americans won't be able to buy speakers from Circuit City without showing the sales clerk their Passport and Voter Registration card.

[editor's note . . . Here's a picture showing that Jim Hennigan was sitting next to Kweise Mfume (head of the NAACP). Neither Jim nor Kweise are in the photo, but their chairs are side by side.]