From Mike Thomson
Llanharan, Pontyclun
I was interested in the reference to using material such as silica gel to act
as an acoustic “drill”, to vibrate rock apart during mining operations (New
Scientist, Science, 8 March, p 17). Although it’s some time since I read
them, this sounds similar to a technique discussed by the author Anne McCaffrey
in her science fiction books The Crystal Singer and
Killashandra.
From what I remember, the crystal singers have perfect pitch and sing the
correct tone/note to tune their mining equipment to extract the valuable
crystals required for construction of interplanetary communication systems. Now,
with the news of this Canadian study, the technique is beginning to sound almost
plausible.
