The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1913-02-05
Noiseless City May Be Fact 1900
In. the Not Distant Future .
Through Maxirn's Invention

Hartford. Conn: fch. 5.-Tense and
Enthusiastic over the magnitude ani
the .well.niEh imsomprchensible re
suits and evolutions of hts recent re
markablc discoveries. Hiram Perc,
Maxim. Jr.. inventor OF tho noiscles.
family. OF inventors. told this after.
noon how the notsclcss city MAJ he,
come u fact In the no, distant future
Mr.. Maxim explained as much a:
his patent applications would permit
tho details Of tho coming silent town
ana only Il generation or less away
saying:
The n great silcneer l hope for
and n that tho world will see i'll
vented and established within tiv.
years. Is u general silcncrr for noises
. doNicS Tor ~dckrcoms. hospitals. no
tells. offices. factories and a hundred
other places. which will shed silence
IN the Same way that Il lamp sheds
light. Horace Wells. with his anacs'
thsttc. first produced patnlessncss in
Hs:tfcrd. 1t us hope that Hartford
neisclcssncss."
|. This is no idle prediction. and ]
have progressed 81 far toward the so.
luton OF the problem that ! have pa.
tent applications, the pendency OF
which prevents me- from talking as
much as I would like.
Suddenncss Makes Noise,
Tho noise made by an engine ex-
|haust and a gun report is caused by
the sudden liberation of the gases and
~ one other thing which I at first did
not even dream Of. This noise ad-
vances through the air. and while Its
velocity OF advance always is prhcti.
cally the same. It's suddenness deter
mine It's noise value.
1t Is like a boat breaking through,
tho water and causing a wave. II the
wave is sudden It breaks and causes
a noise. but II 1t is gradual it glides
away noiselessly. Our ears are bull,
to detect vibrations of a certain sud
deh noise and a certain frequency.
ANY noise outside of our limit Of sud-
denness passes unhsard.
III the gases from 4 gun can he
made to come out slowly they will
not be noisy. and Just here was my
problem. The Old method Of reduc-
Ing tho gases was to cXpend them in
to a large chamber With an outlet go
crooked ns to mako nit difficult and
slow. always thought this a. crude
way. On . g1n.I had to leave q hole
Tor the bullet. and the gas a~lways'per.
sisted in going out through this hole.
For two years searched for a
ss"sV WIttS4t tue pullcI SOuIN
pass while the gases could not. One
morning when watching the water
running out of a bath-tub I noticed
the little familiar whirlpool over the
drain hole. and this comm onplace OBJ
servation caused the world to link my
name with noise reducing device. for
which I found that by treating the
gases so that they would whirl as tho
water in a bath.tuh whirls. a hole
would be left in the center through
which the bullet. could pass. and I
made a gas whirler and put 1t on the
end OF one Of my rifles.
Was Persistant Crack.
Later I discovered. that although
I could eliminate the noise Of the gun
almost entirely under some circum-
stances. under others a persistent
crack was heard. This I learned aft
er long experiment and study. was
bullet-iight noise. which begins at a
velocity Of 100 feet Il second. This
showed that strictly noiseless shooting
Is not possible. This unavoidable
noise is made in the wake of a bullet.
and starts out in the air beyond the
muzzle of the gun"
1T Is too early to go into details.