Article View: comp.os.linux.development.system
Article #110Plants as network medium?
From: Michael J. Fair
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 00:00
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 00:00
57 lines
3336 bytes
3336 bytes
Hello all, at the risk of being flamed for crazy ideas I decided to ask the following question. Would it be possible to use plants as the transmission medium for networks? The question stemmed from the assumption that the Earth already has a built in global communications network and all we need to do is start using it. I know plants are emitting a signal, so in a sense they are "talking." What they are saying is entirely up for interpretation but the important point is they are sending out some sort of signal. This signal operates at appx. 4Hz from what I understand, which when asking some friends about it has a wavelength that could probably reach around the globe. (Piece number 1) Plants like to be talked to and have music played for them. Scientists have proven that this increases their rate of graowth. This implies that they can receive messages and will respond to them. ( Piece number 2) So it seems to me the gap I need to close is in being able to send a message to a plant and hopefully have it "echo" the message. I unfortunately have no background in the electronics to make such a device to start experimenting with it. I would assume it would be very similar to radio technology but like I said, I don't know for sure. I am not concerned about bandwidth right now, I just want to get a message to "bounce" off the plant. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a meaningful message, just a simple "echo" of whatever I sent. My initial assumptions are that each plant (or plant species) has its own resonant frequency, and that whatever signal I sent at that frequency the plant would duplicate and copy for me. I know someone out there can answer this question, I chose the linux and bionet groups because I figured they would have the highest likelihood of succeeding at answering this, and if it worked, the linux guys could probably create a device driver for it. The long term vision of this idea is that we won't have to pay a phone bill for slow internet access anymore! Please respond to the newsgroups as I will not have access to my email over the next couple weeks. Thanks for any and all responses. I know it might sound funny but if this does turn out to be anything useful I would be very thankful. I have a game going with about 63 other ppl that says I can get one of these devices in my hands by November 21, 1998. So as Sherlock Holmes loved to put it: The game is afoot! Thanks in advance, -- Michael --
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f5392,d64bb549f3b9438d,start X-Google-Attributes: gidf5392,public X-Google-Thread: 102b32,d64bb549f3b9438d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid102b32,public X-Google-Thread: 115fe3,d64bb549f3b9438d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid115fe3,public X-Google-Thread: 10669a,d64bb549f3b9438d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10669a,public From: "Michael J. Fair" <michael@technocage.com> Subject: Plants as network medium? Date: 1998/08/28 Message-ID: <35E704A9.5EFFDA9C@technocage.com> X-Deja-AN: 386102762 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Keyway Internet Access 909-933-3650 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.networking,bionet.plants