Siteadmin, Check users, Administrators
12,071
edits
Changes
→The Xylophone
== The Xylophone ==
== 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 pulverizing any structure, from a [[trestle]] strut to a building, within a hundred miles. This was no means of communication or information storage. This was, quite simply, a weapon.
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 pulverizing any structure, from a [[trestle]] strut to a building, within a hundred miles. This was no means of communication or information storage. This was, quite simply, a weapon.
The novel never names the precise location of Project X. It does, however, give identifiable landmarks along the circumference of the Xylophone's area of effectiveness:
* [[Des Moines]], [[Iowa]]
* [[Fort Dodge]], [[Iowa]]
* [[Austin]], [[Minnesota]]
* [[Woodman]], [[Wisconsin]]
* [[Rock Island]], [[Illinois]]
The center of this region lies in or near the town of Dunkerton, Iowa, slightly north of east of Waterloo, Iowa. [[Mr. Thompson]] gave the name Harmony City to the project campus and the lands surrounding it.
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.
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.