Talk:Laser harp

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Lasers so powerful you have to wear gloves? I don't believe that. --Abdull 10:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Direct exposure to a class IV laser may lead to skin damage; see laser safety and [1]. –Mysid (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duff physics

There is so much physics that is wrong in this article, it's unreal. "the gloves act as a trigger for the note on the beam in question" -- what does that mean? "deccelerating the light to only half the speed, so it is half the temperature" -- it's impossible to "decelerate light" in this context (for sure, you could decelerate the light by making the harp out of a sheet of glass, but then he wouldn't be able to put his hand in it). And "decelerating" only has one "c". Furthermore, where does half the speed = half the temperature come from? Carl w 22:33, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The velocity of light doesn't actually change in glass. The phase velocity changes but the group velocity stays the same (which denotes the actual speed of light propagation) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.101.44 (talk) 21:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More links

Added link to blueink studios whose largest laser harp recently went to Burning Man and WIRED Nextfest. --66.108.211.227 03:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It's real alright

OK, the problem is obviously "no own research", but the Laser Harp is not a fake, because I played one. There was an installation at the 1989 "Concert d'Images" exhibition at the Nouveau Forum des Halles in Paris. It consisted of a number of laser beams behind a perspex partition, in which two thick gloves were mounted, not unlike a baby incubator. On the palms, retro-reflectors were affixed. You could stick your arms into the gloves and trigger notes by sticking your hands in the beams. By moving your hands up and down, you could also do modulation.

As for "careful inspection of concert footage", that's completely useless because those videos have been edited. As an example, the Laser Harp started malfunctioning during the 1990 Paris La Défense concert. If you happen to have a live recording from the Europe 2 radio station, it can plainly be heard. After a few painful minutes of mis-triggered and double-triggered notes, the melody supposed to be played with the laser harp is replaced with a synth that sounds very, but not completely similar to the original sound (which would presumably have been the Syntex).

The whole section about "many people believe" should probably be removed, because "many people" have never seen one up close and personal, let alone played on one.

Now, whether all of the music during one of Jarre's concert is 100% live is quite another discussion, but the fact of the matter is that (a) it works and (b) it didn't work when used live during the 1990 Paris concert. SeverityOne 21:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added some information about working (and malfunctioning) laser harps to the article. As a reference, here is a page with information about Jarre exhibitions, including the playable laser harp at Concert d'Images. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SeverityOne (talk • contribs) 20:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Just one practical question: Is it really enough to put just a hand to block the beam? If so, does that mean that a stray bird may disrupt a Jean-Michel Jarre concert? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.119.42 (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)