Wouldn’t that be weird if someone mentioned that playing a specific video on your laptop could potentially crash your system.
However, according to a story shared by Microsoft principal software engineer Raymond Chen on his blog The Old New Thing, some Windows XP-era laptops did end up taking exception to the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” because it contained the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that crashed it
According to Chen, an unnamed “major computer manufacturer” discovered that some of their computers were crashing when trying to play the song and that playing the song on one laptop could even crash another computer nearby that was just minding its own business. The manufacturer also discovered that the issue cropped up on other companies’ laptops as well.
But the curious case of resonance doesn’t end here. Group of soldiers are always asked to break their marching step while cross a bridge. Why?
When soldiers march in three files over a bridge, they generate a rhythmic oscillation of sine waves on the bridge. And due to the mechanical resonance induced, the bridge may collapse.
( Refer Broughton Suspension Bridge Collapse Incident)
Hence engineers designing objects having engines must ensure that the mechanical resonant frequencies of the component parts do not match driving vibrational frequencies of the motors or other strongly oscillating parts.
Resonance is an interesting read and there is an excellent video by YT Channel - Veritasium. I would be sharing the links, if you would like to read/study further.
Links:
- The Surprising Secret of Synchronization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-_VPRCtiUg
- The Old New Thing : https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220816-00/?p=106994
- Mechanical Resonance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_resonance#:~:text=Mechanical%20resonance%20is%20the%20tendency,it%20does%20at%20other%20frequencies
- Broughton Suspension Bridge Collapse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broughton_Suspension_Bridge
- Raymond Chen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WindowsDocs/status/155811494473810329
