Joey Green's Mad Scientist

Hose Phone

What You Need

Hacksaw
100-foot rubber garden hose
Two large funnels
Black electrical tape

What to Do
Use the hacksaw to cut off the metal couplers at the ends of the garden hose. Insert the narrow end of a funnel into each end of the hose and secure in place with the black electrical tape. Hold one funnel to your ear and the second funnel to your mouth. Say something. You will hear your voice with a slight delay. Stretch the hose across the yard and have a friend speak into one funnel while you listen with the second funnel.

What Happens
The hose works just like a phone, with a slight delay.

Why It Works
At sea level, sound waves travels 760 miles per hour. That means sound travels through a 100-foot-long hose in one tenth of a second.

Bizarre Facts

Bats make high-frequency sounds while flying and navigate using the echoes from these sounds to determine the distance and direction of objects in the area. Using reflected sound waves to navigate is called echolocation.
In 1860, the inventor of vulcanized rubber, Charles Goodyear, died, having failed to perfect a practical use for his invention and leaving his family with nearly $200,000 in debts. Ten years later, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich, determined to cash in on rubber's untapped potential, founded the B. F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio, and began producing the world's first rubber hoses.
The 1970s television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta, popularized the meaningless catchphrase "Up your nose with a rubber hose."
Around 350 B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that sound is carried to our ears by the movement of air. He was wrong. Sound travels in waves.
The higher the altitude, the slower sound travels.
Two days before he broke the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager broke two ribs.
On Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, the mouthpiece also served as the earpiece. Thomas Edison separated the transmitter from the receiver, making the telephone easier to use.

Telegram about the Telephone
In 1876, an internal memo at Western Union read: "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

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