New military weapon that breaks the bones of everyone on a battlefield?

[housecat]

I've heard and read about this before.. that if you resonate a frequency equal to whatever your given object has, it will break or destroy that item.


So why does not the US military have a device that lets loose a sound frequency that is equal to human bone?
I'd guess this would be some very low "bass" (if you could call it that), that would be inaubible.

If this is possible, soldiers of the future would have to wear protective gear against sound frequencies.


As far as I know, every physical item has a frequency on which it exists.
This is why glass explodes when you reach a certain high pitch frequency.. you've all seen this on commercials ect.


Thinking about this practically, its a much better weapon than nuclear as that has obvious setbacks to the planet.

But if you told Fallujah through megaphones and leaflet drops, to leave if you offer no resistance.. then let loose a the "bone frequency" large enough to destroy those in the city only it would be very useful.

The humanity of such a method of attack is debatable.. but I'm curious if its even feasible with current technology.

ANTIWAR PEEPS NEED NOT APPLY TO RESPOND WITH THEIR OBJECTIONS TO MY COMMENTS.
UNFORTUNATELY WAR WILL ALWAYS BE PRESENT UNTIL ALL THE HUMANS ARE DEAD, OR THEIR BONES ARE EXPLODED. AND SOMEONE LIKE MYSELF WILL BE EXPLODING BONES SOON SOMEDAY REGARDLESS OF YOUR 1960'S LIFESTYLE.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING. :thumbsup:

 

[eLiu]

I don't know if this is possible/practical, but I don't think the US would put money into it...namely because this surely must violate some sort of "war-convention"...like the treaties where the signers promise not to use chem/bio/etc weapons. You know what I mean? It's like inhumane or whatever, lol.

Edit: Though I have seen stuff about sound being used as a non-lethal. They had like 2 humvees set up with emitters, and they could point the sound-waves at the target so that the two emitters would constructively interfere and cause the target to vomit (or something along those lines). Can't aim/shoot when you're vomitting.

 

[housecat]

I dont know if existing treaties would cover something like audio warfare.
And I'm not referring to the kids pumping 50cent rolling down your street.

Its a little inhumane, but surely not as inhumane as bleeding to death from a bullet in your heart.
It might be painless, considering your skull would explode at the same time as the rest of your body.
So in that context, it'd be very humane.. at least on the same level as lethal injection. And we do that to citizens who break the law.

 

[Gibsons]

AFAIK increasing amounts of sound will first cause deafness, then unconsciousness, then death. I think the cause of death is things like ruptured blood vessels, collapsed lungs. I suspect targeting the bones with a specific frequency might prove inefficient as the bones seem to be pretty heavily damped - they're basically sitting inside a bag of water.

 

[housecat]

That is true. Though I do not know if something highly advanced that produced the "bone frequency" would be weak enough to be stopped by the flesh and blood around bones.

The skull is not hydrated much besides on the inside.
As long as you can get the head, they are dead regardless.

Call it the Revenge of the West for all those beheadings

 

[Gibsons]

Just intuitively, I think the sound pressure level needed to explode a skull by sound resonance exceeds normal lethal levels of sound by orders of magnitude. I think in some cases explosions are lethal just because the sound waves present an enormous pressure differential which makes a lot of things go wrong. So I'm guessing that even if you find a resonance frequency for bones in general, the sound will be lethal at a level far below the level that would break bones.

 

[element]

short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: element
short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

but bones do not have THAT much variation between human to human.
maybe a few inches of length at most difference between a taller man and shorter man.

point being, it seems that if a human being can resonate a signal that destroys glass.. why could not a audio machine break a mans bones?


granted, if you took that champagne glass and wrapped it up in blodo and flesh.. it wouldnt explode so easily.

but take that frequency upon which it breaks, and magnify it 1000X through some machine and it will still break the champagne glass even inside.




i dont know if my idea is feasible at all.

but i imagine a humvee pull outside an enemy city with some huge advanced speaker device... then letting loose the signal instantly breaking everyones bones within a 100mile radius.

lol, hopefully this is a bit more plausible than the light saber idea...

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: housecat
I dont know if existing treaties would cover something like audio warfare.
And I'm not referring to the kids pumping 50cent rolling down your street.

Its a little inhumane, but surely not as inhumane as bleeding to death from a bullet in your heart.
It might be painless, considering your skull would explode at the same time as the rest of your body.
So in that context, it'd be very humane.. at least on the same level as lethal injection. And we do that to citizens who break the law.

If your bones break, the respiratory sistem will fail (the rib cage is used to breathe). Dying from impossibility to breathe might be assimilated to chemical weapons effect.

On the other way, I think you need ultrasonic sound for bone breaking effect, and ultrasonic is absorbed very fast in athmosphere, and even faster in clothes or flesh

 

[CycloWizard]

It's a lot easier to just shoot someone. I think that's the simplest answer. In a more technical sense, bones aren't a rigid material - they exhibit viscoelastic behavior and, therefore, do not necessarily have a fundamental frequency like more traditional materials, since the bone itself acts to dampen input energy. Thus, the energy required to make this useful would be tremendous. I'm guessing it could be done, but it simply isn't practical.

 

[housecat]

keep em coming guys..


i know its not practical today.. but marty mcfly went back to the future with a delorean.. i want to break some bones with my stereo

 

[ribbon13]

You'd have better luck making a giant Tesla oscillator and bolting it to a tectonic plate

 

[harrkev]

You are forgetting one thing. You compare this to breaking glass with sound. Try packing the glass in a box filled with cotton.

The point is that not everything has a decent resonance. A tuning fork has a very strong resonance at one frequency. An item like an egg or a bowl of jello won't.

But I HAVE heard a rumor of a sonic weapon that can make a grown man make a mess in his underwear...

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: harrkev
You are forgetting one thing. You compare this to breaking glass with sound. Try packing the glass in a box filled with cotton.

The point is that not everything has a decent resonance. A tuning fork has a very strong resonance at one frequency. An item like an egg or a bowl of jello won't.

But I HAVE heard a rumor of a sonic weapon that can make a grown man make a mess in his underwear...

South Park?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: element
short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

but bones do not have THAT much variation between human to human.
maybe a few inches of length at most difference between a taller man and shorter man.

point being, it seems that if a human being can resonate a signal that destroys glass.. why could not a audio machine break a mans bones?


granted, if you took that champagne glass and wrapped it up in blodo and flesh.. it wouldnt explode so easily.

but take that frequency upon which it breaks, and magnify it 1000X through some machine and it will still break the champagne glass even inside.




i dont know if my idea is feasible at all.

but i imagine a humvee pull outside an enemy city with some huge advanced speaker device... then letting loose the signal instantly breaking everyones bones within a 100mile radius.

lol, hopefully this is a bit more plausible than the light saber idea...

well... if we get the option of arbitrarily magnifying the power of sound, why be so precise with the frequency? Just put on some bass and do a couple 10^9x magnified sonic booms and smash everyone?

 

[KoolAidKid]

Originally posted by: harrkev
You are forgetting one thing. You compare this to breaking glass with sound. Try packing the glass in a box filled with cotton.

The point is that not everything has a decent resonance. A tuning fork has a very strong resonance at one frequency. An item like an egg or a bowl of jello won't.

But I HAVE heard a rumor of a sonic weapon that can make a grown man make a mess in his underwear...

This is more or less correct. I believe that it is being developed by Raytheon.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: housecat
i dont know if my idea is feasible at all.

element already answered that.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: element
short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

Also the element must be pure enough so that there is an average resonance frequency that can be used and have it resonate enough of the material for it to break...this is why you must use crystal wine glasses, not conventional glass glasses when you sing at them.

 

[mdchesne]

it's like the theory of the "poo sound", or the frequency that makes you crap yourself. The thing is, you have to be in a room or place where many, many, many preconditions are met. amplitude, frequency, loudness, no frequency feedback from echoing or reflection. And even if they could FIND the noise, applying it would be too much money. the neutron bomb idea is a much better approach (atomic bomb that detroys only living matter. no EMF blast or heat wave or devastation. everything just dies)

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: element
short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

<snip>

granted, if you took that champagne glass and wrapped it up in blodo and flesh.. it wouldnt explode so easily.

but take that frequency upon which it breaks, and magnify it 1000X through some machine and it will still break the champagne glass even inside.

It wouldn't actually, sound travels at different speeds through different mediums, so the same frequency that shattered it in air would have absolutely no effect if it was suspended in a liquid, particularly a non uniform, moving liquid passing through flexible tubes of varying density.

It's kind of like trying to break a ceramic mug by matching it's resonate frequency when it's in the dishwasher.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: element
short answer is that the resonance frequency is dependant on more than just the type of material (in this case bone) but also it's dimensions, which in each person is different. Not to mention it's being dampened by flesh and blood around it.

<snip>

granted, if you took that champagne glass and wrapped it up in blodo and flesh.. it wouldnt explode so easily.

but take that frequency upon which it breaks, and magnify it 1000X through some machine and it will still break the champagne glass even inside.

It wouldn't actually, sound travels at different speeds through different mediums, so the same frequency that shattered it in air would have absolutely no effect if it was suspended in a liquid, particularly a non uniform, moving liquid passing through flexible tubes of varying density.

It's kind of like trying to break a ceramic mug by matching it's resonate frequency when it's in the dishwasher.

but what about the skull?

we could at least blow that up, as its not contained in any water to speak of?

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: mdchesne
it's like the theory of the "poo sound", or the frequency that makes you crap yourself. The thing is, you have to be in a room or place where many, many, many preconditions are met. amplitude, frequency, loudness, no frequency feedback from echoing or reflection. And even if they could FIND the noise, applying it would be too much money. the neutron bomb idea is a much better approach (atomic bomb that detroys only living matter. no EMF blast or heat wave or devastation. everything just dies)

Neutron bombs are still nuclear weapons, though. Even though the yields are very low compared to normal nukes, there's still going to be some fallout, blast, even a fireball and I would assume a mushroom cloud.

From this website.

Due to the rapid attenuation of neutron energy by the atmosphere (it drops by a factor of 10 every 500 m in addition to the effects of spreading) ER weapons are only effective at short ranges, and thus are found in relatively low yields. ER warheads are also designed to minimize the amount of fission energy and blast effect produced relative to the neutron yield. The principal reason for this was to allow their use close to friendly forces. The common perception of the neutron bomb as a "landlord bomb" that would kill people but leave buildings undamaged is greatly overstated. At the intended effective combat range (690 m) the blast from a 1 kt neutron bomb will destroy or damage to the point of unusability almost any civilian building. Thus the use of neutron bombs to stop an enemy attack, which requires exploding large numbers of them to blanket the enemy forces, would also destroy all buildings in the area.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: housecat
but what about the skull?

we could at least blow that up, as its not contained in any water to speak of?

The brain acts to absorb almost all energy input to the skull - one of its least-recognized functions. I have some actual simulation videos of the kinetic energy of a brain during a head impact somewhere around here from a lab experiment (soccer headball ) that I could post if people want to see it and I can actually find it.

 

[Calin]

Someone told me he was on some mountain top when 10 MiG 21 planes passed at a speed pretty close to Mach 1 (I assume). He said he was vomiting or trying to vomit for a quarter hour, and he felt the sound shock for hours

 

[SVT Cobra]

What about the operator...it would have to be an unmanned vehicle to blast such a powerful frequency....plus i do believe that this "mass destruction" by killing blind, and not the more surgical(yet sometimes ineffective) way that is preffered by our culture and society, would be considered inhumane...

Also if you have been keeping up with Popular Mechanics in the last five years they have explored dfferent sorts or weapons that emitt electromagnetic waves that can easily be configured for certain areas ect. ect....

Also what about using the basic and well known microwaves that could be used to stop a heart...i have heard this is possible also, and might not require such a "sledge hammer" blast of energy.