It’s good to have family. I like my family. They make me happy. But they are CRAZY! I had been talking to Jen this weekend about designing a t-shirt for a pub crawl. She had been talking to Jeremy about Gma’s health and he had some crazy quackery idea. Jen then sold me down the river by telling him he should contact me since I was an enginerd. (Thanks Jen I <3 you too.) I told this to Emily and we lamented the fact that unfortunately so many crazy people are actually our relations in this world. So today ...... I get Jeremy's email.
Hey Nick,
Was talking w/ grandma and grandpa the other night and grandpas research suggests to him that a device called a Lakhovsky Oscillator has the potential to help grandma. I have no expertise in electronics et al. so cannot judge the efficacy of such a device however, if they BELIEVE it will work then that is good enough for me. So, am sending the technical description and drawings and maybe we can fabricate one and get it to grandma. Grandpa thinks that a Tesla Coil is included as part of the design of the Lakhovsky oscillator so am sending data for it as well. Let me know if this is something you may be able to do as I may have a line on purchasing one but figured would check w/ you first.
Trust all is well w/ school etc. and talk soon,
J.
Jeremy's attached files
The Tesla Coil!!!!!
Lakhovsky Multiple Wave Oscillator
My response :
Not to burst your bubble but this thing is pretty much a radio transmitter with “special antennaes”. Gma would get the same effect from sitting in front of one of the local radio station towers (although this would actually kill her if she got too close). Supposedly there is supposed to be some magic in the wavelengths it produces. It pretty much looks to me to be a broadband microwave. Yes the type of microwave you cook with. In essence we’d be cooking Gma. To produce a strong enough EM field to actually penetrate Gma would be substantial. I think this is quackery. and think there is more risk (link) involved than benefit. If I made something like that from scratch I’d be afraid that I’d create a larger risk of electrocuting/cooking Gma and Gpa than actually doing good. (that doesn’t even take into account the large electric bill they’d get. Oh and they’d proly need what is called three phase power run to their house. That doesn’t happen. Industrial buildings get 3 phase power and I’m sure it’s a heck of a lot more expensive than regular single phase link ) If you really want something I’m sure I could go to the local Goodwill/Salvation Army and pick up an old radio take it out of it’s case create some circular antennae thingees out of coat hangers and repackage it and send it to Gma and Gpa.
Promoting this type of quackery makes me think of the debacle that is going on in Texas where they are putting “god made the earth in 7 days” into our science text books. If that doesn’t burn your ass Mr. Damn-Right-We-Came-From-Apes then nothing will. At least give me the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Sorry I’m not more gung-ho about it all. I want the best for Gma and for her to get better but I think a better start would be for her to actually listen to her doctors and heed their advice. If the Lakhovsky Oscillator made Gma at least do what they asked I’d be all about it. But I think if anything right started to go they’d attribute it to the quackery and stop the medicine and reverse all good that was done.
If you can buy one (and please don’t) it looks like the thing is exceedingly simple and yet I’d be very wary about it’s safety. The simple part is in the design but adapting it to modern household electricity and not producing a fire hazard due to power transformation is where I’d be scared shitless of someone selling these things. I can’t imagine that they are very reputable. I doubt an engineer is making these things. Some douche bag trying to make money off of people who don’t know better proly is and proly doesn’t know jack about power converters/inverters/transformer etc. If they put in a shitty power transformer the thing would probably overheat and catch on fire (that’s why we have agencies/labs like Underwriters Lab and the CE tick mark on electronics….so the shit doesn’t burn down America). And I’d rather not see Gma and Gpa’s house catch on fire. I particularly like it the way it is. So many good memories in it that I’d rather not see go up in smoke because of some quackery.
Let me know what you want me to do,
NK
ps. Still pissed at Texas
First Larkhyn, then Zander, now this???? And it’s snowing outside again!!!!!!!! FML