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: ''This article describes the secret [[weapon of mass destruction]] invented and described in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]], ''[[Atlas Shrugged]].'' For other uses of the phrase, see [[Project X (disambiguation)]].''
'''Project X''', in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was a project of the [[State Science Institute]], completed in the last year of the [[strike]] of the men of the mind called by [[John Galt]]. It was, quite simply, a [[weapon of mass destruction]] and was intended as an instrument of totalitarian control. Instead it became the trigger for the final collapse of the socialistic society that the [[United States of America]] had then become.
Project X also was a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]] of the perversion of science by unscrupulous and power-hungry government authorities, and was also a metaphor for the unintended consequences of the use of taxpayer's money to fund scientific research.
{{spoiler}}
== Background ==
Project X, also known as Project Xylophone, grew out of the earlier work by [[Robert Stadler]], PhD, who became Director of the [[State Science Institute]] shortly before the beginning of John Galt's famous strike. (The probable year of the strike call was 1917, as shown [[Atlas Shrugged#Time setting|here]].) Robert Stadler had done pioneering work in the physics of [[sound]], and particularly in [[ultrasonic]] sound, presumably while he was Chairman of the [[Physics]] Department at the [[Patrick Henry]] University (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]]). Stadler had shown that a sound, at the right frequency and delivered with the right intensity, could pulverize any substance.
When Dr. Stadler came to the State Science Institute as its Director, he continued his work on sound and essentially placed all of it in the [[public domain]]. (Note that the Copyright Act of 1973 provides that the work product of any government agency is in the public domain in the United States.)
== The Xylophone ==
The instrument known as the Xylophone used Robert Stadler's principles of sonic physics, but in a manner that he never intended. Under the direction of Dr. [[Floyd Ferris]], the Associate Director (and in fact the ''actual'' director), the State Science Institute built an instrument capable of flattening any structure, from a [[trestle]] strut to a building, within a hundred miles.
In the last year of the strike (probably 1929), the Xylophone was completed. That the instrument had no greater range than a hundred miles was due entirely to the refusal by [[Henry Rearden]] to fulfil a peremptory order for Rearden Metal to use to build the Xylophone. The builders presumably had to use ordinary [[steel]], supplied by the Associated Steel Company, owned by Orren Boyle. This fact might also have caused a crucial delay in the building of the project, because Associated Steel was notoriously unreliable in the fulfillment of its orders.
== The demonstration ==
In July of the last year of the strike, the State Science Institute held a public demonstration of the instrument that they now named the Thompson Harmonizer (named for the character identified only as [[Mr. Thompson]], the last [[President of the United States]] in the novel). In that demonstration, a tethered goat, a wooden shack, and a mocked-up railroad trestle were all flattened within seconds.
Robert Stadler attended the demonstration, and, as incredible as this might seem, had no idea even of what Project X was, much less the destruction of which it was capable, prior to the actual demonstration. After it was done, Dr. Stadler asked Dr. Ferris, "Who invented that ghastly thing?" Ferris, unperturbed, credited Stadler himself, and reminded Stadler that his own work on sonic physics was at the heart of the design of the Xylophone.
Then, before Stadler could protest further, Ferris handed him a prepared speech to deliver. This speech began with this absurd claim:{{cquote|I am humbly proud that I have been able to place into the hands of Mr. Thompson a device that will have a healthful and liberating effect on the mind of man.}}
== The triggering ==
In the winter of the last year of the strike, John Galt was arrested. The government held Galt in the [[penthouse]] of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel for about a week while they attempted to persuade him to take the post of "Economic Dictator" of the country. They then attempted to force Galt to participate in a [[radio]]-[[television]] simulcast program to announce a new "plan for peace and prosperity" with his name on it. Instead of cooperating, Galt showed the entire country that someone was aiming a gun at him, and then said, "Get...out of my way."
Robert Stadler did not remain in New York to watch that program. Instead, after a humiliating scene with Galt (at Galt's demand), he drove directly to the site of Project X, intending to seize control of it and rule the area of its influence as his private feudal domain.
But when he arrived, he found the Project site already occupied by a gang of thugs, led by [[Cuffy Meigs]], who was probably the most militant, and the most corrupt, of all the [[Washington, DC]] insiders. Meigs boasted that he, as the leader of the "Friends of the People," was now in charge, and that he and his men could care for the Xylophone without help. Stadler, incredulous, struggled with Meigs, on the level of physical violence, for control of the Xylophone. In the process, Meigs pulled one of its levers.
This one lever pull triggered the Xylophone at full gain. The result was the utter destruction of the Project site and the flattening of every house and every building within the Xylophone's range. The most crucial object that was destroyed was the Taggart [[railroad]] bridge over the [[Mississippi River]]. The western half of the bridge, and the first six cars of a freight train that was crossing it at the time, all disappeared.
The narrative states that Robert Stadler died slowly and in agony on the Project site, and was the last man to die.
{{endspoiler}}
== Scientific basis ==
The Xylophone is aptly named, because its purpose is to destroy things by using ultrasonic sound. This is an extreme application of a technique, often called ''sonication'', that is used in dentistry to remove [[tartar]] from teeth and occasionally to remove [[calcium]] deposits from [[denture]]s.
No real-life investigator has ever attempted to duplicate the Xylophone or to build anything like it. The most recent use of sound as a weapon occurred in the [[Iraq]] theater, where soldiers often used Long Range Acoustical Devices, or LRADs, to direct an ear-splitting sound at an unruly crowd or an approaching attacker.<ref name=lrad>"Troops in Iraq Get High-tech Noisemaker," [[Associated Press]], March 3, 2004. <http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_noise_030304,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl></ref> About a year later, a cruise ship used an LRAD-like device to repel [[pirates]].<ref name=usatoday>Pain, John, "Cruise ship attacked by pirates used sonic weapon," ''USA Today'', November 7, 2005.<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-07-cruise-blast_x.htm></ref>
This is not the same as using sound to pulverize an object. The worst hazard that the LRAD could present to an overexposed subject is permanent hearing loss.
The use of sound, especially in the ultrasonic range, as a weapon is a common theme in [[science fiction]]. For example, in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' episode "The Way to Eden," a group of galactic drop-outs gerry-rig an ultrasonic broadcaster to incapacitate the crew of ''USS Enterprise'' (NCC-1701) long enough to allow the drop-outs to disembark, and then to reactivate at a level that could kill. No contemporary acoustical expert has ever suggested that a man could die from overexposure to sound or ultrasound at any given pitch.
== Typology ==
[[Ayn Rand]] did not believe that the government had any business funding scientific research, basic or applied. She used her Project X account partly as a plot device to explain the destruction of a key bridge, but primarily to express her fear that government-funded research will always lend itself to the construction of instruments of tyranny, and was therefore something to be strictly forbidden in a sound society.
Nor was Miss Rand the only author to express such a fear. The motion picture ''Atlantis'' includes a short dialogue in which a character who invented a wide-area space-heating device saw that device re-engineered to be a weapon, a result that he found not merely distasteful but despicable.
== References ==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:X, Project}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]
'''Project X''', in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was a project of the [[State Science Institute]], completed in the last year of the [[strike]] of the men of the mind called by [[John Galt]]. It was, quite simply, a [[weapon of mass destruction]] and was intended as an instrument of totalitarian control. Instead it became the trigger for the final collapse of the socialistic society that the [[United States of America]] had then become.
Project X also was a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]] of the perversion of science by unscrupulous and power-hungry government authorities, and was also a metaphor for the unintended consequences of the use of taxpayer's money to fund scientific research.
{{spoiler}}
== Background ==
Project X, also known as Project Xylophone, grew out of the earlier work by [[Robert Stadler]], PhD, who became Director of the [[State Science Institute]] shortly before the beginning of John Galt's famous strike. (The probable year of the strike call was 1917, as shown [[Atlas Shrugged#Time setting|here]].) Robert Stadler had done pioneering work in the physics of [[sound]], and particularly in [[ultrasonic]] sound, presumably while he was Chairman of the [[Physics]] Department at the [[Patrick Henry]] University (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]]). Stadler had shown that a sound, at the right frequency and delivered with the right intensity, could pulverize any substance.
When Dr. Stadler came to the State Science Institute as its Director, he continued his work on sound and essentially placed all of it in the [[public domain]]. (Note that the Copyright Act of 1973 provides that the work product of any government agency is in the public domain in the United States.)
== The Xylophone ==
The instrument known as the Xylophone used Robert Stadler's principles of sonic physics, but in a manner that he never intended. Under the direction of Dr. [[Floyd Ferris]], the Associate Director (and in fact the ''actual'' director), the State Science Institute built an instrument capable of flattening any structure, from a [[trestle]] strut to a building, within a hundred miles.
In the last year of the strike (probably 1929), the Xylophone was completed. That the instrument had no greater range than a hundred miles was due entirely to the refusal by [[Henry Rearden]] to fulfil a peremptory order for Rearden Metal to use to build the Xylophone. The builders presumably had to use ordinary [[steel]], supplied by the Associated Steel Company, owned by Orren Boyle. This fact might also have caused a crucial delay in the building of the project, because Associated Steel was notoriously unreliable in the fulfillment of its orders.
== The demonstration ==
In July of the last year of the strike, the State Science Institute held a public demonstration of the instrument that they now named the Thompson Harmonizer (named for the character identified only as [[Mr. Thompson]], the last [[President of the United States]] in the novel). In that demonstration, a tethered goat, a wooden shack, and a mocked-up railroad trestle were all flattened within seconds.
Robert Stadler attended the demonstration, and, as incredible as this might seem, had no idea even of what Project X was, much less the destruction of which it was capable, prior to the actual demonstration. After it was done, Dr. Stadler asked Dr. Ferris, "Who invented that ghastly thing?" Ferris, unperturbed, credited Stadler himself, and reminded Stadler that his own work on sonic physics was at the heart of the design of the Xylophone.
Then, before Stadler could protest further, Ferris handed him a prepared speech to deliver. This speech began with this absurd claim:{{cquote|I am humbly proud that I have been able to place into the hands of Mr. Thompson a device that will have a healthful and liberating effect on the mind of man.}}
== The triggering ==
In the winter of the last year of the strike, John Galt was arrested. The government held Galt in the [[penthouse]] of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel for about a week while they attempted to persuade him to take the post of "Economic Dictator" of the country. They then attempted to force Galt to participate in a [[radio]]-[[television]] simulcast program to announce a new "plan for peace and prosperity" with his name on it. Instead of cooperating, Galt showed the entire country that someone was aiming a gun at him, and then said, "Get...out of my way."
Robert Stadler did not remain in New York to watch that program. Instead, after a humiliating scene with Galt (at Galt's demand), he drove directly to the site of Project X, intending to seize control of it and rule the area of its influence as his private feudal domain.
But when he arrived, he found the Project site already occupied by a gang of thugs, led by [[Cuffy Meigs]], who was probably the most militant, and the most corrupt, of all the [[Washington, DC]] insiders. Meigs boasted that he, as the leader of the "Friends of the People," was now in charge, and that he and his men could care for the Xylophone without help. Stadler, incredulous, struggled with Meigs, on the level of physical violence, for control of the Xylophone. In the process, Meigs pulled one of its levers.
This one lever pull triggered the Xylophone at full gain. The result was the utter destruction of the Project site and the flattening of every house and every building within the Xylophone's range. The most crucial object that was destroyed was the Taggart [[railroad]] bridge over the [[Mississippi River]]. The western half of the bridge, and the first six cars of a freight train that was crossing it at the time, all disappeared.
The narrative states that Robert Stadler died slowly and in agony on the Project site, and was the last man to die.
{{endspoiler}}
== Scientific basis ==
The Xylophone is aptly named, because its purpose is to destroy things by using ultrasonic sound. This is an extreme application of a technique, often called ''sonication'', that is used in dentistry to remove [[tartar]] from teeth and occasionally to remove [[calcium]] deposits from [[denture]]s.
No real-life investigator has ever attempted to duplicate the Xylophone or to build anything like it. The most recent use of sound as a weapon occurred in the [[Iraq]] theater, where soldiers often used Long Range Acoustical Devices, or LRADs, to direct an ear-splitting sound at an unruly crowd or an approaching attacker.<ref name=lrad>"Troops in Iraq Get High-tech Noisemaker," [[Associated Press]], March 3, 2004. <http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_noise_030304,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl></ref> About a year later, a cruise ship used an LRAD-like device to repel [[pirates]].<ref name=usatoday>Pain, John, "Cruise ship attacked by pirates used sonic weapon," ''USA Today'', November 7, 2005.<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-07-cruise-blast_x.htm></ref>
This is not the same as using sound to pulverize an object. The worst hazard that the LRAD could present to an overexposed subject is permanent hearing loss.
The use of sound, especially in the ultrasonic range, as a weapon is a common theme in [[science fiction]]. For example, in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' episode "The Way to Eden," a group of galactic drop-outs gerry-rig an ultrasonic broadcaster to incapacitate the crew of ''USS Enterprise'' (NCC-1701) long enough to allow the drop-outs to disembark, and then to reactivate at a level that could kill. No contemporary acoustical expert has ever suggested that a man could die from overexposure to sound or ultrasound at any given pitch.
== Typology ==
[[Ayn Rand]] did not believe that the government had any business funding scientific research, basic or applied. She used her Project X account partly as a plot device to explain the destruction of a key bridge, but primarily to express her fear that government-funded research will always lend itself to the construction of instruments of tyranny, and was therefore something to be strictly forbidden in a sound society.
Nor was Miss Rand the only author to express such a fear. The motion picture ''Atlantis'' includes a short dialogue in which a character who invented a wide-area space-heating device saw that device re-engineered to be a weapon, a result that he found not merely distasteful but despicable.
== References ==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:X, Project}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]