Streams of consciousness

August 22, 2007

Minnesota Bridge: Sounds of Destruction?


 Updates:

11/16/11 Sac Bee: Questions raised on Bay Bridge structural tests The spire of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge eastern span majestically climbs hundreds of feet above the bay, an emerging icon of California’s engineering and aesthetic prowess.”
“Yet a Bee investigation has found that the state Department of Transportation technician who conducted key testing to ensure structural integrity of the span’s foundation was later disciplined for fabricating test results on other projects. The technician, Duane Wiles, also failed to verify that his testing gauge was operating properly, as required by Caltrans to ensure the gauge’s accuracy, before he examined parts of the Bay Bridgetower foundation.

02/09/10  Delayed dream comes true as widow of Minn. bridge collapse victim adopts twin Haitian toddlers “Sathers — whose husband was killed when a Minneapolis freeway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007 — is realizing her dreams of being a mother with the adoption of Ross and Alyse from Haiti.”

10/26/2008: Star Tribune Com: Oberstar to NTSB chief: Reconsider 35W bridge hearing ”(Congressman) Oberstar suggested that the NTSB’s opposition to a public hearing was either a sign of understaffing or a ‘condescending attitude’ toward other specialists who might bring forward new information that NTSB investigators hadn’t considered.” [I still wonder if sound played a part in this.  Maybe they should bring out the tuning forks?]

§ ≈∞ ≈∞ ≈∞ ≈ §

As with many people here and around the world, it was a shock to discover that the bridge in Minnesota had just suddenly and without warning collapsed.  I could say a whole lot about the ongoing deterioration of our infrastructure, which is but one of many areas that will need close scrutiny and study.  I know that engineers are looking closely at what happened and seem focused on the truss brackets right now.  But, for the sake of considering other possibilities, I thought I would quickly post a dream that came to mind that I recorded on 06/04/2006:

“A ‘master musician’ is frantically trying to warn me of a major (event) that will have to do with striking a certain sound to completely break down the molecules of a (structure).  He is doing his best to prevent this from happening and wants me to know; however, it all has to do with a method that destroys not by bombs or crashes, but by sound alone. It is soon, he says.”

Could a musical pitch do something like this?  I do not know, and I do not know if this dream has any practical application (although I recall the old Memorex commercial where an opera singer shatters glass); however, I am posting it for posterity.

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