Slashdot Mirror
One-Way Sound Walls Proven Possible
disco_tracy writes "Imagine a room where a band is playing. Neighbors can't hear the music, but if someone outside the room is talking, the musicians can hear it. The concept — a kind of one-way mirror for sound — seems imaginary, but two Italian scientists recently pushed this kind of sound manipulating technology closer to reality (abstract)."
Sounds like a good use for interrogation rooms...
What's wrong with an ordinary soundproof wall with a microphone on one side and a speaker on the other?
Imagine a room where a band is playing. Neighbors can't hear the music, but if someone outside the room is talking, the musicians can hear it.
They can't be a very good band if they can hear somebody talking in the next room while they're playing...
No sig today...
"Imagine a room where a band is playing. Neighbors can't hear the music, but if someone outside the room is talking, the musicians can hear it."
How does this wall mean the musicians will hear the talking over their own music? Is there one-way sound air coming soon too?
World to Slashdot calling, it would like you to know about little tiny things called "testing environments". You should learn about them.
And exactly where do you think you are now? The best testing environments look exactly like the production environments. Taco is such a smart dude!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The article describes the proposed theoretical mechanism as a "wave diode" - I wonder if the same principle is applicable to light? I don't know if "light diodes" already exist in some sense, but that seems like a possibly useful component for optical computing...?
The same reason why a 1 way mirror is better in some applications than a video camera on one side of a wall with a monitor on the other.
On possible use is in security. People can avoid cameras, and small unseen microphones are not directional. Airports, casinos, police stations, and other security heavy areas will certainly have a use.
Imagine the CIA setting up a room for foreign dignitaries. The dignitaries sweep the room for bugs. But unknown to them, the floor of their room is a 1 way sound barrier, with agents sitting below with directional microphones pointed at the ceiling underneath each room.
Imagine a submarine with a section of the vessel being a 1 way sound room where large microphones reside. All other walls are sound deadened except 1 outside wall. More equipment could sit there than any outside array of microphones, listening for enemy ships... but without an outside sonar signature, and without worrying about hearing internal noises.
Even naturalists would love it. Imagine a retreat in a forrest where every outside wall was 1 way, making it sound like you weren't even in a building, but the animals were not disturbed by the sounds you make snapping pictures and talking.
I8-D
You just need a really tiny man to sift through the molecules and sort them by energy level.
I'm not sure what this had to do with sound, but what you're thinking of already exists and it's called a peltier.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
We can hear the idiots inside but they don't seem to be able to hear us.
oblig...
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
a better masturbation chamber...
A material that allows evergy to only pass one way seems like it would defy some sort of law of physics. Imagine a cube made of this stuff that only lets sound in... Would the energy inside the cube continue to build until it erupted in a sonic boom?
Make a small cube with each wall made of this material so that sound can enter the cube but it can't get out. Next, let it fill up with sound. Take it to the airport, construction sites, concerts, etc...
Then you leave it somewhere with a sign on it that says, "Open Me."
...was a time traveler!
AL: *singing away inside booth*
TIM: Al! Can you hear me?
AL: I can hear you...
TIM: Think about that.