The Brown Note debunked on MythBusters

The Brown Note is something that people claim the US gov't developed during the 60's - 70's. Supposedly, it is a very low frequency sound that is inaudible to humans (less than 20 Hz) and makes them lose bowel control and even go insane.

The MythBusters on the Discovery Channel hired one of the world's best audio teams to test this theory. They got their best and loudest woofers and started at 20 Hz and worked their way down, down, down.

Guess what? No poops.

They played the speakers at >160 decibels. Even though the test subject couldn't hear it, he still had to wear earmuffs to keep his ears from blasting out. He did admit, however, that the constant pressure and battering from the speakers after a long time made him feel kind of mopey and a little dizzy, but that was it. He was still fine to walk around.

I never believed in the "Brown noise". But I had a question, your post makes it sound like they did the test on one guy. If that's the case then it was not even close to scientific and they deffinatly can not say they have debunked it. Understand that I don't believe in the "Brown noise", but who is to say that if it did exist it would affect all people? Just playing devil's advocate because I hate "studies" that are not ever remotely scientific claiming that they have "proved" or "disproved" anything.

The MythBusters need to be debunked as a propaganda show with no scientific basis to support them!

Problem here is they tried a pure sine wave at different frequencies. They never attempted more sophisticated waveforms and combinations of waveforms. It has always been stated that this sound is a complex waveform.

I gave up on the MythBusters when they claimed lightning cannot come in on phone lines. Never once did they contact a phone company and ask about melted lines being replaced because of lightning. Never talked to radio techs that see lightning damage through phone lines regularly. In fact, they never talked to Lightning Experts who could explain the unique properties of lightning which their experiment did not duplicate.

They actually took turns. I really was pretty unclear on that now that I look back. I know they had at least two guys and a girl. They even put on diapers outside their pants.

Originally posted by Qwas
The MythBusters need to be debunked as a propaganda show with no scientific basis to support them!

Problem here is they tried a pure sine wave at different frequencies. They never attempted more sophisticated waveforms and combinations of waveforms. It has always been stated that this sound is a complex waveform.

I gave up on the MythBusters when they claimed lightning cannot come in on phone lines. Never once did they contact a phone company and ask about melted lines being replaced because of lightning. Never talked to radio techs that see lightning damage through phone lines regularly. In fact, they never talked to Lightning Experts who could explain the unique properties of lightning which their experiment did not duplicate.

They call government and utility agencies all the time. Sometimes they even admit that they called them after the test, and that they wasted a lot of time and energy on something they didn't even have to test.

I will agree, however, that I do enjoy their more "practical" tests than their more elaborate tests, such as old wives tales and such.

[edit on 7-9-2005 by trinitrotoluene]

Although MythBusters is a good show, they are not really performing scientific tests to prove or debunk anything.
In 99% of the tests that they have used on their show there is no control group, they leave a great deal of unanswered variables that they do not address. One of the best examples of where they have not taken into account external forces was a recent show where they attempted to recreate the Robin Hood story of splitting an arrow with another. They quickly informed everyone that since they were not expert archers they decided to use other equipment than what were used in the days of Robin Hood.
They used a compound bow instead of a Long Bow
They used Birch dowels stuck into a target instead of ash arrows which were used back in the day.
And then of course, they were not expert bowmen as reported by the movie.
They also disqualified their experiment by not taking in the external forces which they used to ultimately debunk the myth, such as wind speed and direction.
The way to view MythBusters is to always remember that the stars are not scientists nor do they claim that they are or even that they have scientists to use as reference points. All the stars have for their claim to fame is that they are fairly well-known as FX masters in the world of movies. Give them the task of recreating ET and they can do it. To use them to "debunk" a myth no way.
They are a great show for entertainment though!

Some of their tests leave out the biggest factors that come into play.

Like the explosive decompression theory. The concluded that a person couldn't be ripped from a presurized airplane when there was a hole blasted into it.

What did they do? They presurized an airplane hull that was stationary on the ground to do the test.

I sent them an email telling them to stick their head out of the window of a car going 200KM/h and then think about it that a passenger jet has a cruise speed of 900+KM/h.

Theres so many tests they did that have holes in them bigger then they can blow with their pyrotech and bomb experts on their best day.

I'm not a scientist and most of what I know I learned from comic books but I still hold out hope for the existense of the brown noise. Why? Because it's just funny.

Making someone soil themselves at the push of a button is the next evolution in exlax brownies and I for one must believe.

In defense of the myth busters it's a darn entertaining hour of television.

If anyones saw them launch the chinese throne, or blow up the cement truck, they know what I'm talking about.

Spiderj

The brown noise is at 5Hz and needs to be well above 160dB, if that were the case, many DJs in clubs would have had pulled many pranks to this day. Every time decibels go up in 3, the volume percepted by the human ear is doubled. 120dB is very bad for the ears and can cause deafness. The brown noise is real, but the speakers needed are not readily available in your average club, car system, or audio studio.

No need to take those harsh drugs to overcome constipation, just pop the new Stones "brown note" CD in your player to get you going and going and going. At his age Im sure that Mick will find this a great career extender. And it certainly would give a whole to meaning to the song "I cant get no satisfaction".
.

Originally posted by Qwas
The MythBusters need to be debunked as a propaganda show with no scientific basis to support them!

I'm with you. I attempted to watch a handful of their shows but was relegated to frustration at their utter lack of scientific method. Their show is simply entertainment (weak at that) not science. Apparently these guys forgot everything they learned in high school from utilizing a control to reformulating your ENTIRE experimental procedure (not just selected bits that suit TV) when your hypothesis falls short.

Bunk TV. I only wish that I could have a show if idiots like these get one. CSI is a bit better, but anyone who is detail oriented can find mass flaws in their scientific approach as well. You don't even have to be well versed in forensic science...just common sense.

The lowest transmitted frequency is 75HZ by the US military which they use to signal their subs to raise to accept another form of communication. The antenna for this station is 750ish miles long.

Using "big ass sub woofers" wont do anything. I've messed with frequency generation a bit, once you get to around 90hz (depending on your speakers) the frequency is to low to be output by a speaker. The speaker just cant do it, its not made for it. They tend to distort, so you dont actually get the frequency you're looking for. Not to mention, you'll probably just blow it up from having to over drive it to get any results at all.

The only other way to generate the frequency is by using a transformer. I don't think that'd work very well.

If there is a brown note, we cant find out.. At least for now.


[edit on 8-9-2005 by senseless04]

I dont think you actually saw the show did you? they had some of the top professionals in the world come in to do the sound tests, they didn't do it themselves, they were only the test subjects. The pros had huge speakers specially modified to produce the 5hz frequency arranged in a semi circle around the subject. The point is the amount of damage the sound waves would do to your ears is much worse than soiling your pants, thats why it was debunked.

Originally posted by cantbluffme
I dont think you actually saw the show did you? they had some of the top professionals in the world come in to do the sound tests, they didn't do it themselves, they were only the test subjects. The pros had huge speakers specially modified to produce the 5hz frequency arranged in a semi circle around the subject. The point is the amount of damage the sound waves would do to your ears is much worse than soiling your pants, thats why it was debunked.

Wouldn't the frequencies all mix together and either cancel out or form a third frequency? Maybe i can find that episode somewhere.

[edit on 8-9-2005 by senseless04]

What is the scientific basis (if called that) behind the Brown Noise? I first heard of this on South Park. It seems that there is very little evidence to corroborate such a claim. just another wilde fantasy of the human mind.

www.meyersound.com.au...

The MythBusters team returned to Meyer Sound recently to again enlist Schwenke, along with a custom-modified battery of Meyer Sound equipment, to test a myth rather less suited to squeamish viewers: the so-called “Brown Note.” It was a scientific investigation into a decidedly delicate subject.

The story of the Brown Note, also known as the “Disco Dump,” asserts the existence of a low frequency vibration which, when reproduced at sufficient volume, resonates with the depths of the human digestive tract to cause what medical personnel call “involuntary gastrointestinal motility.” Put in less technical terms, the Brown Note reputedly precipitates a loss of sphincter control, giving rise to immediate defecation. Different versions of the myth place the frequency between 5 and 20 Hz, and recent variations claim that the effect has been produced at loud rock concerts.

I love the show. It's a lot of fun, even when the 'facts' are embellished.

Sanc'.
edit: fixed link




[edit on 8-9-2005 by sanctum]

Myth Buster's is a TV show that does rudimentary experiments in the time allowed to them.

And they do some pretty cool ones to. The cell phone/gas explosion theory episode was fun.

Relax, watch the show. If they miss one possibility, write in, maybe they'll look at that possibility in a second show.

Apparently you people forgot one thing:

A well thought out scientific experiment with multiple controls takes months. You can't make that into a TV show. Christ.

[edit on 10-9-2005 by white4life420]

[edit on 10-9-2005 by white4life420]

Actualy, a bulkload of the experiments are done over several weeks and months, examples are rolling moss, salsa jailbrak, pigcorpse corvette, crapbacteria on toothbrush and several more.
I have to admit that some of the experiments are done pritty well, yet others they just seem to do to destroy and blow up stuff.

Its a TV show, with the main focus being on entertainment which the show definatly is.

One of the big flukes they did that had me send them an email even before the show was finished on tele, was the concrete removal one.

They stated it wasn't posible to do it with a small bit of explosives so they just loaded 400 Kilo's of high explosives in the truck and blew the entire thing up, them standing at a 1 mile perimiter still getting hit in the chest by the explosion.

Removing cement out of that truck was not something they should have consulted a pirotech guy on or the FBI, but they should have asked the quarymaster from the quary they blew up the 400 kilo bomb in. Or a tunneling company.

You can blast apart a big slab of rock with little explosives, if you drill holes into the rock and detonate the explosives inside the rocks, thats how tunnelers do it and peal away rocks bit by bit out of a tunnel.

They blasted all their bombs hanging loose inside the cement truck, where most of the blasts power would decipate directly trough the funnel at the back of the cementtruck.