Silence is Golden

As in money.

A cloaking device. More proof the Klingons have landed. Or maybe the Romulans.

Think of the possibilities beyond the Silent Service.

If only my neighbors had this so I didn't have to hear them

Interesting idea. My initial reaction was in the negative. I remember taking a course in sonar in the early 1980s when I worked with submarine weapon systems. An analogy that comes back from memory is that radar is to science as sonar is to black magic. Frankly, radar isn't all that great, but it beats sonar in lots of meaningful ways. I'll say however that sonar is far more of an interesting game when you're playing cold war cat-n-mouse.

But I blather.

It's an interesting idea, certainly, and it could have some very specific applications. While not quite the ultimate advantage, it could help.

In the cold war, the Soviets developed the Alfa class submarine. They were fast and they were noisy. In contrast, the US developed the Los Angeles class submarine, a relatively quiet sub but one that by published numbers (and probably reality) could not travel as fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_class_submarine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_class_submarine

I think it's pretty safe to say that in most cases submarines run silent to the extent practicable, and use passive sonar; they listen. Submarines make noise, so you listen for them. They must also know something about the sound propagation in the water, based on depth, temperature, salinity, et al, in order to know the likely direction and range of the source. Active sonar, pinging, tells the world where you are, and is not exactly what you want to do unless absolutely necessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

For this next link, scroll down to Figure 3 and the related text for a description of how sound propagates in water.

http://www.stanford.edu/class/me220/data/lectures/lect13/lect_13.html

Using a sound pass-through cloak as described in the linked article could help get a sub through some very specific situations. I'll bet however that the kind of technology that could pass sound around something like a sub could also do other things to silence it for other situations.

mac0s9user said:

If only my neighbors had this so I didn't have to hear them

Click to expand...

Mine too!

Silence can mean the difference between life and death. During my military career, prolonged silence was a factor regarding my survival. However, prolonged silence could also become my enemy. Prolonged silence can often affect your state of mind. You are subject to hearing or believing you are hearing sounds when you are not. Worse yet, this state of mind can also taunt one to begin talking to themselves. If this were to happen (in my case), I would have jeopardized both my position, and my chances of survival. Needless to say, I mastered silence.

Sound or noise on the other hand is a blessing in disguise. My tasks, among other factors, all relied on sound. People who talked too much, sang or whistled too much, made my job that much easier. With that said, the majority of sounds people make, they are not aware of. This too was a factor for me to successfully complete my tasks. Of course the easiest tasks involved people who don't pay attention to their surroundings, but that is for another discussion.

What neighbour isn't loud, everyone mows their lawn.
I don't play music quietly, they can be loud if they want.

Brown Study said:

As in money.

A cloaking device. More proof the Klingons have landed. Or maybe the Romulans.

Think of the possibilities beyond the Silent Service.

Click to expand...

If this is developed will the office in charge be know as the cloak room?

At a previous job there was a woman in the IT dept. I called the it girl. She was anything but, though.

At last

I tracked down an article I read in New Scientist magazine years ago

Don't know what happened to the theory tho

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2094-silence-machine-zaps-unwanted-noise.html

I remember that noise-cancelling story and have often wondered what happened, usually when I fire up the lawn mower or snow blower. Imagine dead-quiet mowers, jets, cars, rock concerts, mothers-in-law. . . .