Gravity Speakers
Status: Video special effect
This video purports to show an amateur experiment in which someone created a small gravitational field "using a speaker and a generated sound wave." The instructions say that a Bose Companion 2 Series II speaker was used, and a "sine wave at 16 khz" was generated.Obviously it's fake. Audio speakers will not create a gravity field. But I'm not sure how they created the special effect. (Not that I know much about creating video effects.)
Perhaps they used some kind of fancy editing software. Or perhaps they did it a really low-tech way -- moving the objects one frame at a time to make it appear as if they were sliding towards the speaker. If they did it the latter way, they managed to make the sliding effect look very smooth.
Perhaps it's a viral ad for Bose speakers.
For some reason this video keeps getting removed from Metacafe. Hopefully it'll stay up long enough for you to see it.
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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certainly a magnet, the glue bottle is the giveaway , with the small jump that it makes when he sets it down.
Posted by Angstrom on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:10 PM
Well, I took a look at the owners manual pdf, and yes, the power cable does connect with the speaker that has the volume/phones jack.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6424/hoax2og0.jpg
Funnily enough, the manual doesn't mention telepathy or anything else out of the ordinary.
Posted by Stephen Ockham in Canada on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:17 PM
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6424/hoax2og0.jpg
Funnily enough, the manual doesn't mention telepathy or anything else out of the ordinary.
Here's a clue for you -look at the shadows around the picture frame and chair during the experiment and during the reveal pull back. They are at a steeper angle during the experiment suggesting the objects are propped at an angle relative to the (fixed)TILTED TABLE and camera. (also during the experiment the picture is held firm against the wall (at varying angles...) after it pulls away as if hung naturally from a hook.) Objects are held in place by a magnet held by the guys wife under the table. She releases the magnet and the objects slide down. The objects accelerate smoothly -so it has to be a force i.e. gravity. The lanyard on the phone is lighter so the friction of the table keeps it in place despite the tilt. Put a coffee table book at a 15-20 degree tilt and slide stuff down it -looks the same.
Posted by tickles on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:53 PM
Does anyone know what the background music is?
Posted by James on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 05:58 PM
magnet magic
Posted by sam on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Looks like stop motion to me.
Posted by ollie in california on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:05 PM
Ever consider this is TRUE gravity and the entire stage is being rotated while it pauses to allow the operator to place the object down when the entire table and camerage and stage are horizontal.
They did movie tricks this way in roaring 20's.
Posted by Tony (SunnySky) in WInterpeg in Winterpeg, MB canada on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:05 PM
They did movie tricks this way in roaring 20's.
I think this effect could be obtained with a slightly tilted table, and a speaker set to play a tone that matches the natural resonant frequency of the tabletop.
Objects sitting on the table would be held in place by friction (and not slide) until the speaker is turned on at a frequency that causes the entire tabletop to vibrate. Once the vibration was established, the items on the table would tend to 'walk' down the slope.
The speaker itself could be kept stationary if it had rubber (shock absorbent) feet, which many of them do.
The objects would appear to move smooothly because they would be making tiny 'steps' at the same frequency as the vibration in the surface of the table.
In other words, what 'Harry' said.
Posted by Not Rocket Science on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:19 PM
Objects sitting on the table would be held in place by friction (and not slide) until the speaker is turned on at a frequency that causes the entire tabletop to vibrate. Once the vibration was established, the items on the table would tend to 'walk' down the slope.
The speaker itself could be kept stationary if it had rubber (shock absorbent) feet, which many of them do.
The objects would appear to move smooothly because they would be making tiny 'steps' at the same frequency as the vibration in the surface of the table.
In other words, what 'Harry' said.
hahahahaha, very poorly done, watch the stapler
do the magnetic jump when he places it down and before he turns on the sound!
Posted by Rocky in Utah on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:22 PM
do the magnetic jump when he places it down and before he turns on the sound!
Another interesting thing to note is that if there was some force attracting objects towards the speaker, wouldn't it have some impact on his hand when he turns the speaker on and off?
Just the first thing that jumped to mind. Kind of like putting your into the blender to turn it off...
Posted by Nathaniel on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:35 PM
Just the first thing that jumped to mind. Kind of like putting your into the blender to turn it off...
Note that when the cell phone is being pulled by the "gravity," the nylon lanyard doesn't move at the same speed as the phone - it gets dragged alongside. If the phone was being pulled by "gravity," the lanyard would move along at the same speed.
Posted by Adam Stanhope in Kingston, Massachusetts on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:39 PM
i'm a recording technology major at the university of memphis (with very little time right now) but my first thought was that 16khz is the resonant frequency of the table which would cause for some serious vibrations visible or not that could very easily move objects across a slightly slanted smooth surface. just my two cents. peace.
Posted by Mickey on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:47 PM
Both the magnet/tilting sound like plausible explanations. I don't really have an opinion on how it was done.
However, it looks awefully like a viral to me. It begins with a nice shot of the brand name before the video. There is a nicely set camera angle with a shot of the hand turning on the camera before each test. It is decently lit (for a "home video"). Then, right before the end, we see an intertitle slide reminding us of the Speakers. Finally, we get an unnecessary pullback shot, enough to reaffirm it was a "home video" to the viewer. Especially in a video otherwise so well edited, it seems completely out of place.
Viral videos seem to often try to remind us that they are home videos in an attempt to make them seem legitimate. It seems to be the general concensus that this has at least some video tricks employed. It seems like a lot to go through for such little return. I mean, what other motive would someone have for making a fake video about their speakers.
I'm certainly not ruling out that it is real (in the sense that it was one unaffiliated person that made the video). However, it seems to contain a lot of the classic elements of a viral.
Posted by Archibold on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 07:51 PM
However, it looks awefully like a viral to me. It begins with a nice shot of the brand name before the video. There is a nicely set camera angle with a shot of the hand turning on the camera before each test. It is decently lit (for a "home video"). Then, right before the end, we see an intertitle slide reminding us of the Speakers. Finally, we get an unnecessary pullback shot, enough to reaffirm it was a "home video" to the viewer. Especially in a video otherwise so well edited, it seems completely out of place.
Viral videos seem to often try to remind us that they are home videos in an attempt to make them seem legitimate. It seems to be the general concensus that this has at least some video tricks employed. It seems like a lot to go through for such little return. I mean, what other motive would someone have for making a fake video about their speakers.
I'm certainly not ruling out that it is real (in the sense that it was one unaffiliated person that made the video). However, it seems to contain a lot of the classic elements of a viral.
wow thats awesome! i have to buy some bose speakers....
Posted by kevin in hell on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 08:41 PM
Alex, speakers do generate a gravity field, any object with mass does. However, the mass of the speaker is so slight compared to anything else that it is swamped by the Earth's gravity field. But this trick seems done by magnets, or tilting or some compination of the two. And maybe the frequency of the sine wave is the resonent frequency of the table, which would help by vibrating the table, but I doubt it. The resonent frequency is determined by size primarily and I think the table is so large that the resonent frequency would be sub-sonic or deep into the bass frequencies. Just an idea.
Posted by Christopher Cole in Tucson, AZ on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 08:46 PM
That's idiotic. The camera is attached to the table. The table is tilted so that the left side is higher. The chair and wall picture in the bankground are tilted too. The objects have enough frictional force to stay still until the speaker cases the tabletop to vibrate, and then the objects fall downwards to the right. Look how the cable on the back of the speaker is hanging.
Posted by martin on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 10:13 PM
I vote for the tilting room effect.
Not only did I notice that the picture on the all kept moving from shot to shot, but it seemed weirdly placed - too low to be realistic, yet low enough to be in the shot to give realism to the background.
I think a magnet would make the objects jump or jerk before being moved.
Posted by rich in Pangea on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 10:45 PM
Not only did I notice that the picture on the all kept moving from shot to shot, but it seemed weirdly placed - too low to be realistic, yet low enough to be in the shot to give realism to the background.
I think a magnet would make the objects jump or jerk before being moved.
If the speaker had actually been plugged into something, then I would have said that the table was tilted at a slight incline, say <10 degrees. When the speaker gets turned up it would cause things on the table to bounce very slightly, and "jitter" down the table.
But, no.
Posted by derWiskinator in San Francisco on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 10:50 PM
But, no.
There's some kind of tilting going on; the back wall and the table are not attached to each other! The picture's frame tilts in an arc between takes, with the center of rotation just to the right of the top corner of the chair. If you place a ruler along the bottom edge of the picture frame, you can mark where the extended lines from the different frame angles intersect (I used post-it notes so as not to mark up my monitor). That would be your center of rotation.
Posted by MrGlowbug in Albuquerque on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 11:23 PM
I doubt it's a tilting table, unless all the lighting in the room is also tilting with the table.
Maybe the speaker is an electromagnet.
Posted by Chris on Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 12:59 AM
Maybe the speaker is an electromagnet.
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