Twin Tesla Coils played the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy at the Lawn Teslathon in Baraboo, WS. There are no speakers; the music comes from the coils.
Sit back and enjoy.
(Musical tesla coil video)
These monsters of music stand a full seven feet tall and can output 12 feet of forked lightning (spark-wise). The two coils are placed eighteen feet apart; they are controlled over a fiber optic link by a laptop computer.
These coils produce well over 110 dB of sound; they were constructed by Steve Ward and Jeff Larson.
Science fiction fans may recall the Krang from Alan Dean Foster's 1972 novel The Tar-Aiym Krang:
The gigantic pipes of the machine pulsed with anvillike ringings, circlets of lambent electricity crawling up their sides like parasitic haloes. They crackled viciously, much as ripping plastic foil...
A thousand million jackboots drummed alien marches on the side of his head while a conspiracy of laughing electrons tried to pull his scalp off. He smelled burnt orange.
(Read more about The Krang)
Thanks to Eric Nodacker for writing in with the video and sf tie-in.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/6/2007)
Harrison Bergeron, Illustrated And Practiced
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...' - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1961.
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...' - Philip K. Dick,
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'