Earthquake chimes

[gfish]

I just finished Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility: The Ideas Behind The World's Slowest Computer, which was a fun and interesting (if ever so slightly wankery) read. It offhandedly mentioned a really amazing idea: earthquake chimes! This conjured some very impressive mental images of a rack of suspended I-beams, or church-bell-sized ingots in a delicate whiffletree arrangement, just waiting for an earthquake large enough to set them in motion.

Sadly, I don't a set has ever been made. I did find reference to a "seismofon" installation at a museum. They are computer controlled to react to earthquakes anywhere in the world. Neat, but not of any particularly inspiring dimension.

If anyone has an atrium they need filling, I think you should really consider this option.

Comments

[maellenkleth]

Oh, we also at one point had a 6-metre set of copper pipe chimes (10 cm nominal diameter) hanging from a fir tree on NW 87th in Seattle. Neighbours loved them; they only really kicked in during storms. Getting them **up** that tree was fun; hung them with aircraft cable (which was protected with Delrin sleeves where it passed through the upper balance-points of the pipes).

Somewhere around here I have the lengths and hole positions for them. I do shudder to think how spendy that much hard-drawn copper pipe in that large a diameter would cost nowadays.