+ Reply to thread
Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Picking radio signals in fillings?

  1. #1
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
    Registered
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Coulsdon Cat Basket
    Posts
    10,342

    Default Picking radio signals in fillings?

    Is this an urban myth or is there actual proof of someone picking up radio signals in their fillings/braces or teeth amendments??

    I'm betting urban myth, but if anyone has any proof otherwise, I would be curious to see it.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  2. #2
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Nowhere
    Posts
    2,933

    Default

    Snopes has an account of it happening to Lucille Ball but classifies it as undetermined.
    http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/fillings.asp

  3. #3
    Porosity Caster parzival's avatar
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    West Coast, most likely
    Posts
    502

    Default

    It's certainly quite easy to build a device, even by accident, that could pick up AM radio. All that's needed is an antenna and a rectifier/peak detector; then to hear the signal requires a transducer, which isn't too hard to come by either.
    An antenna is more or less just a conductor of the right size and shape. A rectifier can be just about anything that conducts better in one direction than another; usually it amounts to two different types of material in contact. Two semiconductors, or metal and carbon (a semiconductor), or even two metals with an electrolyte can work. A transducer (i.e. a speaker) could simply a wire with the signal on it and a magnet near a flexible membrane. Obviously the best place to find this stuff is in other electrical equipment (although modern techniques and devices generally don't work as well for it, sometimes intentionally so). Picking up radio signals on other electrical devices is not unheard of.

    In the case of the body, it's a big conductor, and can easily become an antenna. As for the filling as a rectifier, it seems vaguely plausible but unlikely. I don't know enough about what teeth are made of to know for sure. But then you'd also need a transducer, which seems less likely (unless it's shown that electrical signals in the body can somehow be interpreted as audio). In one of the purported Lucille Ball cases, she heard Morse code; it's more plausible that some mechanism in the body could produce clicks, but as for actual music, that seems really unlikely.

+ Reply to thread

Posting rules

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts