This is one of my favorite spy devices ever. One of these days I want to create a replica using a wood CNC and use it as a demo, that would be so friggin cool.
What amazes me is that on HN I hear more about The Thing than about the eponymous invention of its engineer: the Theremin[1].
The first electronic music instrument with mass appeal, it had a magical aspect to it that no instrument has matched since: you play the Theremin without touching it. It senses your body through two antennas, which control pitch and volume.
While the Thing is a neat invention, by its nature, its impact on technology was small.
The Theremin's impact was worldwide. It is what brought electronic music instruments into the mainstream in the 1920s. The iconic synthesizer engineer Bob Moog started his career building Theremins (Moog Music is still the leading world maker of Theremins).
Notoriously difficult to play, the Theremin has been mastered by the very few. You might remember its sound as the chilling, high-pitched howl prominent in the sci-fi and horror movies of the 1950s, or for that whistling melody in Beach Boys' Good Vibrations. The instrument's potential has been unexplored since then, due to how difficult it is to play, and our ability to get that tone from synthesizers.
If you want to try out a Theremin today, you should try the digital reincarnation of the instrument: the Theremini[2], made by Moog Music (keeping true to their roots!), which addresses the UX issues with variable quantization (like having frets, think guitar vs. violin).
And if you want to know how it can sound like in, listen to Pamela Krustin's playful performance[3] - it's nothing like what people did with it back in the day.
Going back to The Thing, the saddest part of it was the cost. To make The Thing, the USSR forced Leon Theremin to abandon his lustrous career (...and wife) in the United States, and return to work behind the Iron Curtain, in secret. Nobody knew what has happened to him for decades.
Leon's living until the 1990s was the only thing that prevented him dying in obscurity; the West has found out about him, and he got to re-unite with his old pals in NYC.
But one is only left to imagine what we could've had if Leon could stay in the US and work alongside Don Buchla, Bog Moog, Dave Smith, Tom Oberheim, and other pioneers that carried the torch of electronic sound production after Leon was whisked away.
Instead, all we have is a cool spy story, and a small Wikipedia entry.
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[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 20.8 ms ] threadWhich reminds me, has there been any progress on backscatter wifi or Bluetooth communication ?
The first electronic music instrument with mass appeal, it had a magical aspect to it that no instrument has matched since: you play the Theremin without touching it. It senses your body through two antennas, which control pitch and volume.
While the Thing is a neat invention, by its nature, its impact on technology was small.
The Theremin's impact was worldwide. It is what brought electronic music instruments into the mainstream in the 1920s. The iconic synthesizer engineer Bob Moog started his career building Theremins (Moog Music is still the leading world maker of Theremins).
Notoriously difficult to play, the Theremin has been mastered by the very few. You might remember its sound as the chilling, high-pitched howl prominent in the sci-fi and horror movies of the 1950s, or for that whistling melody in Beach Boys' Good Vibrations. The instrument's potential has been unexplored since then, due to how difficult it is to play, and our ability to get that tone from synthesizers.
If you want to try out a Theremin today, you should try the digital reincarnation of the instrument: the Theremini[2], made by Moog Music (keeping true to their roots!), which addresses the UX issues with variable quantization (like having frets, think guitar vs. violin).
And if you want to know how it can sound like in, listen to Pamela Krustin's playful performance[3] - it's nothing like what people did with it back in the day.
Going back to The Thing, the saddest part of it was the cost. To make The Thing, the USSR forced Leon Theremin to abandon his lustrous career (...and wife) in the United States, and return to work behind the Iron Curtain, in secret. Nobody knew what has happened to him for decades.
Leon's living until the 1990s was the only thing that prevented him dying in obscurity; the West has found out about him, and he got to re-unite with his old pals in NYC.
But one is only left to imagine what we could've had if Leon could stay in the US and work alongside Don Buchla, Bog Moog, Dave Smith, Tom Oberheim, and other pioneers that carried the torch of electronic sound production after Leon was whisked away.
Instead, all we have is a cool spy story, and a small Wikipedia entry.
Tack it onto the costs of The Cold War.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin
[2]https://www.moogmusic.com/products/etherwave-theremins/there...
[3]https://www.ted.com/talks/pamelia_kurstin_the_untouchable_mu...