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Sonic Gun

 Why not build a sonic weapon, adjustable frequency...
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Ever seen a singer shatter glass with her voice... The scientific explaination is that her voice is on the same resonent frequency as that type of glass. Thus the vibration cause by sound waves is amplified over time and the glass shatters. Build a weapon that has the same wavelength as bone, or tank armor, but bone would be good, kill the enemy operating tank, capture tank... although it might not be worth it if tank is low-tech... But still, the theory seems to work. But can the weapon be made to kill fast enough. Thing about one on a unmanned vehicle sent into mid of enemy formation that broadcasts in all directions and destroys bone or armor or whatever their weapons are made of... But would it work...??
—althyr, Jun 20 2003

(?) Sonic Weapon http://abcnews.go.c...c_bullet020716.html
baked for causing pain [FarmerJohn, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

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       Not everything resonates like a wine glass. I tap a wine glass with a fingernail - *ding* there's your frequency. Tap my shin - *thud, thud* well, my guess is that if they don't shatter at rock concerts, they're pretty safe.
—lurch, Jun 20 2003
   

       everything has a resonent frequency they are all different. Tapping has nothing to do with it
—althyr, Jun 20 2003
   

       // everything has a resonent frequency // partially correct.
Most things have a large, or extremely large, number of resonant frequencies. If you find one particular frequency to deliver to, say, a paper cup - the cup resonates to that frequency... but it also resonates at other frequencies. The energy you delivered gets spread out into a huge jumble of different vibrations.		   

       If you have something with only one resonant frequency, or a very small number of parasitic harmonics, and you can deliver sufficient energy to it that the resulting vibration exceeds the stress limits of the material, it will break.   

       // Tapping has nothing to do with it // If you tap something, and don't get back a pretty well defined tone, it means the harmonics are going to steal a lot of your energy.
—lurch, Jun 20 2003
   

       While everything may have a harmonic frequency, damping (in this case, by surrounding tissue) plays a huge role in determining wether or not the intended target will resonate. A damping material will not only reduce vibrations but will also change the frequency that an object will resonate at, variable by amplitude. Add in the fact that every bone will have a different ideal resonance frequency and damping factor, this won't work.

Sonic weapons can be made, however, to produce extreme discomfort and nausea when used in the high-level infrasonic range (below the range of human hearing), or pain, when directed and focused ultrasonics are made to produce interference beat patterns within our bodies (see FarmerJohn's link).
—Freefall, Jun 20 2003
   

       [althyr] has not been seen since July 2003 (seemingly only a month or two after joining), and was subsequently lost for sure in the great crash of 2004.   

       [althyr] seems to have not understood that a resonant frequency is a property of an object, not of a material.   

       This archaeology was done without the use of the random button.
—notexactly, Sep 26 2016
   


 

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