And the walls shall sound?

[DaSwede]

Someone I know says that, theoretically, sound (such as voices, music etc) could spontaneously become 'engraved' into any matter, for instance the walls of the house where you live. No stranger, really, than sound being engraved into a vinyl record, only, with the walls etc we don't have any means of 'playing' them... but - theoretically - there could be spontaneous releases of sound.

Is this true, and, if so, how long could such a sound sequence be - if speech, would it be identifiable as a word, a phrase, a sentence, a voice... or just a fragment of a fragment. Again, if true, could this explain a whole lotta ghost stories?

Thanks in advance, don't sign in every day.

[bernardo]

It's called the "Stone Tape Theory" and it's one idea to explain ghosts. I think it's a load of rubbish - it's just an arbitrary idea that someone thought up to explain something without doing proper scientific investigations.

[brachiopod]

sod it -can't even be 'r'sed to re-construct my argument now that i've lost my last answer subsequent to submission.

[snook]

Brachiopod, losing your answer's a bummer after all that typing (and thinking!). If I remember to do it, I write my answer in Word, then cut and paste. Then if it goes missing, it's not the end of the world. Just thought I'd mention it, but I'm sure you knew that anyway.

As for the question, who knows? It might seem a ridiculous theory (okay, it does seem a ridiculous theory then!) but the idea of television or mobile phones or storing 200 hours of films on a hard disk player would have seemed a ridiculous theory a hundred years ago (specially since there weren't even any films to store then anayway!).

Who knows what we're going to find out is possible in the future, or what is going on around us that we're unaware of? Remember that IBM boss who said he could only ever foresee a world market for five computers? Got that one wrong, didn't he - and he was in the business! It's the ones who imagine the (seemingly) impossible, and then go about trying to make it happen, that change the world.

Anyway, I've kinda lost the thread of my argument (if there was one) so I'll post this anyway, on the off chance that it makes some sense.

[fo3nix]

I don't see any reason why this would be true. It's false afaik.

[qapmoc]

This probably comes from a science fiction story I read a few years ago, the exact same scenario was used as the basis for the story.
Sorry but my stock of books is too large and my memory leaks too much these days for me to remember which one it was!

[mibn2cweus]

The problemo I have with this ider is that most recording mediums I know of (audio or video) use a sequencial logging (variations over time) method. The walls being a dispersed record of all sounds they have experienced I cannot imagine how this information (data) could be decoded from all that had occurred before and since into an intelligible message? <"?

[Toureman]

Don,t be silly!

[wildwood]

The only time sound becomes engraved in a wall is when the sound is so loud that it actually damaged the texture of the wall. Think about it! You'll need an explosion to create enough air pressure to damage a wall. boom boom

[qapmoc]

Wrong I am afraid, if you use infrasound at the correct frequency you can knock walls down quite easily.

[DaSwede]

Thanks! Yes bernardo it does indeed seem to be the Stone Tape Theory that I'm referring to, although I had no idea it had a name. Googling for that, I also found suggestions for a Water Tape Theory ...

brachiopod, sorry you lost your mind or whatever... I will return back to this question at some later point to see if you've regained it, 'cause I really would be interested to know what you wrote.

snook, I'm with you (again.) You're interested in synchronicity as well, aren't you? (If I remember correctly I read an old reply of yours to a question about artificial intelligence, and you certainly read my mind; I could have written that myself.)

Thanks, all!