A Film Synopsis:-

~ about something real that is happening now...

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From (author) Steve Acworth... sparkspin@btinternet.com ~ to whom it may concern:-

All of the following is factual. It is purely an account of my life's involvement with string, with no exaggeration, falsification or distortion. Although some of the detail may seem a lttle bland, it all contributes to the "larger picture".

The least expensive way to make this movie would be to actually make the tool described in detail here. It is entirely plausible that exremely long-focus lenses might be necessary to capture images of what may be attainable with this piece of kit, since it is likely that no electronic equipment will work properly anywhere near it whilst it is in operation. It is envisioned that less than one million dollars would enable any competent engineer (like those commonly now employed in the film industry) to produce a working prototype. "Special effects" would be largely redundant if the machine were to be proven workable. The cost per machine unit, after development, would be in the region of five or six dollars; certainly no more than that sum.

No new engineering technology is employed; all materials and manufacturing techniques are commonplace.

Although largely autobiographical, String's main subject is just that:- string and it goes like this:~

The author, Steve Acworth, spends most of his life, from the age of 8, around string, starting with crudely fashioned orange-box "guitars", continuing through the rock'n'roll years of the 60's playing and singing in amateur and semi-pro bands, leading on through a career in graphics, a period of "dropped-out (and failed) would-be popstardom" and on to become an internationally known and respected specialist electric guitar technician and maker, counting many "rock star" musicians as clients.

Most importantly, his life-long interest in strange and alternative physics leads him on into the logical analysis of ancient legend and myth and the connections and coincidences that abound therein with string. An obsession with the UFO phenomena leads him literally "down the garden path" to the status of "Mad Inventor" in an unceasing quest to uncover the secrets of the Holy Grail of gravity control and thus its conquest. That quest is now currently the focus of discussion around the Alternative Technology web-rings and is perhaps close to proper recognition:~

Site: http://www.sparkspin.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm has recently come to the attention of Alternative technologies folks:~

Example:example page

For your convenience, that entire web-site folder (modified for this CDROM) is included here and can be accessed by clicking this link ~ and this document also contains other specific links to that folder. info (BBC Radio 4 discussions).

A special kind of string is at the crux of a machine that can release almost unbounded energy from a drop of water but not only that, will provide a workable "Gravity Key". This is what particle physicists have sought after for decades. No sensible scientist would claim that we have the answers we need to crack this nut from the research yet done. The more power and energy we put in to the subject, the less it seems we know, especially in the area of Quantum Mechanics. Notwithstanding that, here is some information from the accepted view. Also, here...

Or you could read another summary at- http://www.flash.net/~csmith0/theryall.htm (Nothing to do with me).

World Economy:- a lumbering stone-age cart with a very transparent halo...

If this particular story ends with a failed, disproven hypothesis, then it makes fine science fiction but if the hypothesis - a finely detailed explanation in terms of engineering and Pure Physics (with string at the focus), with none of the hokum or weird spiritual nonsense normally associated with the area of UFO's and the building of the Great Pyramids) turns out, after 30 years' work to be correct, then the world becomes overnight a very different, much better place. The wheel, wing and rocket are suddenly rendered obsolete, the oil industry is decimated and world economy is plunged briefly into chaos but the once-green planet is healed.

Modest?

Moreover (and crucially), an army of "Superman" police is equipped with a hand-held tool that renders them virtually invincible and the day of the terrorist and dictator is at an end. The "tool" in question turns out to be the embodiment of the frequently illustrated image in ancient Egyptian engraving, typically held in the hands of Pharaohs;~ The Ankh.

"String" is the story of how all of this comes to pass...

The story begins with an 8-year old boy in a garden shed at the end of a long day in school (where he has been made to sing musical scales for hours and forced to endure what he considers to be religious clap-trap by a well-intentioned but fanatical teacher).

It has been an important day though and one that will change the shape of the rest of his life (and possibly civilization on the grand scale)...

The school music lessons have served to sharpen his ear but he has found it hard to take on board the flip-chart pictures of long-robed disciples, sheep and wide-eyed children at the feet of a kindly faced and bearded "saviour". He recalls the moment when focus on today's lesson has drifted and a kind of dream-state has descended upon him and a voice is speaking in his subconscious ear:~

"You will be the man who makes toys for the children who ride in spaceships".

In the shed, the boy has decided to make a start and begins to make his first "guitar". He takes an old kitchen drawer and nails a stick to it, with a hole at the end to take a shaved-down clothes peg for tuning. A piece of green sea-fishing twine is tied to a nail at the end of the box and wrapped around the tuning peg. A piece of wood is stood on end to serve as a "bridge" and he starts to mark out the notes of a major scale along the stick, working by ear. The first tune he plays is "Oh Shenandoah".

There is a mighty "BANG" and the bridge falls over. He stands it up again and re-tensions the string. "Oh Shenandoah" now sounds completely wrong and he realises that it isn't how long the stick is; rather, it is how long the string is...

Years of George Formby emulation on ukulele, guitar making and playing later (in 1965), he sells his first half-decent acoustic guitar (a crude 12-string) to Peter Frampton, who is at the time a 15-year-old kid at the same school...

1966 sees him playing keyboards in a Tamla Motown-styled band whilst on tour in Cornwall where he meets guitarist Noel Redding and some months later in a pub in the West End of London's Charing Cross Road is sat drinking with him. Noel tells him:-

"I've just been for an audition to play bass with some long-haired 'coon' who plays guitar with his teeth that Chas Chandler has brought over from the States and I've got the gig. You've got to hear this guy play; be down at Chiselhurst Caves next weekend ~ we'll get you in"...

After "The Experience" witnessed at less than three feet from the feet of "The Master" (Jimi Hendrix), he is converted back from keyboards to Fender Stratocaster and Marshall stack and embarks on a period of that direction.

1967 through 1971 sees him first training, then practicing as a lettering artist, eventually running a silk-screen print sign production plant (not entirely unlike Adolf Hitler).

Bowie's "Starman"...

A period of the almost inevitable soft drugs and shoulder-rubbing with locals David Bowie and Arthur Brown (Fire!) in the early 70's Beckenham days led to his first demo recording. Bowie (by then with Angela) listens to the results of the first sessions and tells him that he is very talented and asks what he intends to do with that talent? He replies :~

"I don't see myself as a star but would like perhaps to work in Childrens' TV.

If I made any money from music I would put it into antigravity research".

Bowie replies that he should not be afraid of success but rather aim for the very top-most shining stardom and a week later calls him to say he's written a song for and about him.

His prescence is requested and Bowie sits at the piano and plays and sings to him:~

"There's a Starman, waiting in the skies; he'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds ~ he told me:

Let the Children boogie;

Let the Children boogie"...

1972 he is in "late hippy" mode and suffering from a broken heart / relationship. He goes for a lone holiday in SW England and spends a night alone at the centre of Stonehenge and the voice from his childhood repeats the message in his head:~

"You will be the man who makes toys for the children who ride in spaceships".

He leaves a large flat stone he has previously brought home from a Cornish beach on top of an earth-worknearby to Stonehenge. Some years later he returns to retrieve it only to find a foot-trampled pathway around it and obviously, from the extant "hippy detritus", it has been used as a ceremonial altar for some considerable time.

He takes it home with him again and it remains with him through several house moves and eventually he cements it into his front doorstep, where it (probably) remains to this day.

1973 sees him in the throws of (maybe and hopefully) signing with Decca Records by the man who has previously (famously) turned down the Beatles (Dick Rowe:- "Go back to Liverpool Mr. Epstein; four-man guitar groups don't make it anymore..."), who thinks he's finally found something to save his face around the music business. Wrong. Around this time Steve's been performing many experiments with fly-wheels, coils and magnets attempting to design a "gravity drive engine", and in a stoned frenzy of frustration with the procrastinations of the record company, he demands money for antigravity research and gets booted off and out...

novasite/Old_Time_Crank.htm

The local music shop starts giving him guitar repair work but the infamous flat in Beckenham is badly damaged by fire in late 1974, the fire having been set by a crazed schizophrenic who has escaped from the local asylum and worked his way into the confidence of one of Steve's legitimate house-guests. The mental patient has taken exception to Steve's painting of the Garden of Eden and thrown turpentine up the wall and set a match... when the fireman eventually brings the painting out of the wreckage, it's just black.

Two years' work is gone forever. There is no photograph except this one from many months before the fire; at the time of the fire it had got to be pin-sharp and there was a rainbow lighting the valley:~

<<<click for larger pic.

Forced to move out from the charred flat, Steve sets up workshop in the loft above the music shop and throughout the summer of 1974, trade explodes into a frenzy of ''busy-busy'' guitar fixing...

He performs a completely "race-tuned" rebuild on a brand new Fender Stratocaster for Jeff Beck, who uses it to record the million selling album "Blow by Blow". Steve receives no credit, of course. To the contrary, Beck insists in interview that he does all of his own guitar 'tech work. This is the shape of things to come.

A wave of strange kharma follows in his wake...

1976 ~ Failing to take adequate safety precautions whilst working with two-pack plastic guitar lacquer nearly kills him with massive peritonitus. A blood count of 2½ out of the normal 14 and an open wound for three months is no pretty sight...

In 1977 he spends a few days with Marc Bolan to fix ("race-tune") all of his guitars, including an ancient Gibson Les Paul given to him by Eric Clapton, who had covered it in white emulsion paint, strings, pickups et al. That particular job is to keep Clapton's paint job intact but make the thing work again as a musical instrument. Perhaps naïvely keen to let Marc hear some of his own latest recordings, he suggests a brief listen to cassette and Bolan's last words to him are, in a taxi from the studio:- "There will be time!" but ironically Marc dies in the car crash the following day leaving his favourite guitar on Steve's workbench; the roadies are quick to collect...

Later that year he gets to rebuild the famous original red Hank Marvin Fender Stratocaster guitar (bought for him by Buddy Holly) with which The Shadows had all of their early hits, like "Apache", "FBI" and "Wonderful Land". Hank had abandoned it some years earlier (its 'set-up' having dulled) to a glass display case, in favour of an English-built Burns model (and in the process fundamentally changing The Shadows' own distinctive sound) but now, thanks to Steve's re-build, it (the Stratocaster) works like new again so, remembering how the band used to sound, Hank takes it into the studio and records an instrumental version of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" with it. That track sells a million units and goes to number 1 in the charts...

Steve receives no credit, of course. Fair enough; he got paid £10 to fix it...

During this period he comes to be known as "The Magician" by some of his many private guitar-playing customers. This is because he can see what's wrong with a guitar, often from across the room and without touching the instrument; he is also often able to give a full status report and cure analysis before hearing or touching it...

There is no magic in this though. It is purely about strings, how they prefer to be treated to "give of their best" (and the way that ambient light is reflected from a fretboard among other things). He is much in demand, a kind of "Red Adair" of the electric guitar, travelling far and wide with tool kit in hand...

Strange and bizarre instruments continue to emanate from the workbench...

Here; an electric multi-harp with seven sets of six strings to each harp, a cross-fader section and individual tremolo system for each harp set.

For cross-fading six-string chords.

In 1978 the summoning comes to go out to Hilversum, Holland. Status Quo are recording the "Rocking All Over The World" album at Phonogram studios, a complex of high-tech studio and workshop environment arranged as a square around a large grassy atrium, centre of which stands a huge old oak tree. Quo's guitars all need the "Magician's touch"...

At the very second he enters the studio, bag of tools in hand, there is a massive lightning strike, which splits the oak tree in two and blows every fuse in the entire complex...

Some entrance! Wary sidelong looks are cast in his direction... the lightning strikes (web site page included on this CDROM).

This involvement brings him to the attention of the band's management and producer and a songwriting deal is struck.

Sketch for toy-maker.

Way too ugly!

The publisher tells him that despite his musical talent, he is just too ugly to front a musical act or band and that the best way to use his talents would be to invent a new "Wombles" - type project for childrens' T.V. - so he goes to work on just that.

For a period of two years, the "Oggy" project is assembled, working in conjunction with the music publishing house in London's Mayfair, toy manufacturers and film animators.

Oggy, his girlfriend Peggy-Ann, their pet dinosaur Fizzle, the Rubber Band Fairies, and the Snallops (space slugs who live in clogs) are the resulting family corporate identity for the project and detailed storyboards are written for the animators who have become involved...

The Rubber Band Fairies>

Fizzle likes lemons and spends spare moments listening to the "fizzing" of the needle on the 78 rpm record an old wind-up gramophone.

Snallops (space slugs who live in clogs)

The Oggy project attracts the attention of a major toy manufacturer, who produce 400 painted and dressed promotional sample dolls for distribution around the music business but, in an act of amazing but typical stupidity - makes them in toxic prototype plastic entirely unsuitable for children to handle! Situation normal...

Several song tracks are recorded and childrens' T.V. executives are excited about the project; the music, characters and prototype dolls are all set but the publisher (archetypically) holds out for more and more advance money; leading to raging arguments and frustration.

Rubber Band Song, Clog Dance and Kangaroo Hop (here only represented by crude cassette copies) are considered by all concerned to be obvious strong novelty first singles but everything is on hold for the "right deal".

The arrival of the film ET (The Extraterrestial) heralds the end of the project as all eyes turn that way. Steve parts company with the publisher and "Oggy" is dropped.

Snallops live in clogs.

Very little now remains of the Oggy project; just a few muddy cassette tapes and drawings...

For eleven years, Steve owns an Old English Sheepdog which he calls Beethoven, (wav file embedded in page) much to everyone's derision;- "You can't call a dog that!" is the standard reaction but the dog accompanies him to recording studios and film sets all over the UK on guitar-fixing trips and is well-known to many rock stars, producers and publishers. It is not for several years that the film "Beethoven" is made... "You can't call a dog that!"... The dog is around music and hears guitars being tuned most days and definitely has a strong sense of rhythm. Example:- this barking was real-time and live on the original tape version:-

wav file in media player(1980)

The "String" idea is Born:-

In 1980 Steve goes for a holiday on Crete and his imagination is captivated by the ancient remains of the Minoan civilzation, at Knossos in particular.

It is the first time he's seen any massive and ancient stone edifices up close (except for Stonehenge, of course).

The legend of Thesius and the Minotaur and the rescue / escape by use of Ariadne's famous string spark a completely new turn of direction in his ponderings on gravity synthesis and rock cutting...

Of the many images there that influence him, four figure more than any others...

Such very specific images!.

For "snake", read "sparks" - controlled plasma!

the "double-axe"

The Minoan "Shield"

The "Snake Godess"

The "Bull's horns" (click picture)

The "shield" looks more like an electric plasma field surrounding a vibrating string to Steve and he starts to put two and two together.

"Daedalus revealed the secret of the labyrinth only to Ariadne, daughter of Minos, and she aided her lover, the Athenian hero Theseus, to slay the monster and escape by use of a piece of string. In anger at the escape, Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth. Although the prisoners could not find the exit, Daedalus made wax wings so that they could both fly out of the maze. Icarus, however, flew too near the sun; his wings melted, and he fell into the sea."

There seem to be a great many references to people being able to fly in ancient legends and myths:~ ~ maybe far too often for there to be nothing in it at all. The Bible is full of such stuff ~ and what about magic lamps that produce a "Genie" when rubbed, flying carpets, the "sword in the stone" scenario and why the connection with swords in lakes as a common practice?

It's commonly said that there's a grain of truth behind many ancient myths.

as built...

~and the galleries just look so much better...

as seen by arriving visitors?

~just sooooo much better... ~upside down!

Looking at it logically and open-mindedly, it seems that these people could cut rock and fly it around with ease - which meant that since there are no "runways" (see "Plains of Nazca" link) around for winged craft, they had (obviously temporarily) control over gravity - and whatever gave them that power had been bequeathed to them and had eventually run out. High tech manufacturing was not theirs to command, so they were unable to replenish supplies. String? Also, if one has a machine that defines the localised direction of gravity then it's probably true that one could hang upside down from it (?).

~ and String, he realises, figures large in many ancient legends. The snake eats its own tail, The Gordian Knot etc., Hmmm...

Diary document 1980:~

"From my very meagre knowledge of Particle Physics and the on-going quest for cheap energy derived from torus-like plasma containment devices like the Tokomak, I knew that because of the elastic & springy nature of the plasma, scientists find it very difficult to maintain its central position within the vacuum chamber.

It has occurred to me that, rather as the rifling of a gun barrel induces stability to the projectile by making it spin, if the "spark" (plasma) could be made to spin then the same kind of stability might be achieved.

This would be too difficult in a torus but how about inside a music string?"

Within four years he has worked out that only one machine, in the shape of the Ankh () (a miniature particle accelerator), will fit together and has finished his drawings and filed a provisional patent. Only a music string mechanic could have seen the connection but here begins a long string of rejections and ridicule. Typically for the lone inventor, nobody will take his hypothesis seriously; he has no official qualifications and cannot afford to even begin to build a prototype. He just knows it's the only possible design that will explain most of the ancient mysteries, including how the Pyramids were really built...

Although evidence of ramps and buiders' encampments have been found around the Great Pyramid, maybe they are really just good evidence for the means of stripping off (looting) the building materials, rather than for building.

These beliefs condemn him as a crank of the worst kind, of course...

Because he believes that the machine has the potential for use as a very powerful and extremely portable lightweight weapon, he is bound by the UK laws of Treason to submit it to the UK Ministry of Defence but they can't understand it at all and to be fair, although he knows it to be right, he cannot properly explain its proposed action in conventional "science-speak". His own understanding of it at that time is just empirically based on his understanding of music string mechanics and a smattering of particle physics...

X-files territory:~

After rejection by the MOD, he sends the specification to the USAF via the US Embassy in London. It is sent on to the Weapons Research Facility at Kirtland, Albequerque for proper evaluation...

After the 60 day allocated analysis period has elapsed, no response has been received and the contact name he has been given is then said to have never existed...

1984 sees a serious decline in the use of the electric guitar in popular music because of the increasing use of the synthesizer and he is forced into menial work, driving a fork-lift truck in a chemical factory. 3½ years later a couple of expensive and exotic custom guitar commissions get him back into business and he diversifies into rocking horse making (and marries the girl he's lived with for 11 years). The guitar creeps back into fashion and business expands again but this time it's serious (page of custom guitars)...

He is soon providing traveling guitar doctor service to seven different music shops as well as running a busy workshop at home and takes up Field Archery as a hobby, gets a medal for it and starts to make bows and crossbows, learning about string serving (winding) in the process. He briefly diversifies into rocking horse making...

and portrait painting...


	Having the classic red-green form of colour-blindness is a distinct disadvantage when it comes to painting!

Beethoven, the Old English Sheepdog dies in 1989 and to soothe the animal's last hours, Steve sings him a daft song he has written just for that purpose: (click link) "Eiffel the Giraffe" - a kind of Bonzo Dog / George Formby style ditty. When the dog has departed this life, he decides to take a break from a current recording studio project to record the giraffe song in tribute to the animal who has featured so largely in his life for the previous 11 years.

By quirk of fate, the engineer at the studio has been commisioned to provide (click link) humorous jingles for the evening "shock-jock" at the local FM commercial radio station and is stuck for ideas. Silly jingle-type songs are second nature to Steve, who "cut his teeth" on George Formby ukulele and together with the engineer he embarks on production of an extensive catalogue of radio jingles for the shock-jock's late night show. Within a short time, he has become blasé about being "on the radio" every night of the week and the shock-jock DJ's show has become very jingle-orientated, phone-in listeners insisting on certain of the jingles be played several times a night...

The guitar solo mpeg sound file (embedded in a page) that comes with this was written for the show's opening flagship jingle. Despite having hundreds of guitars passing through his hands on a monthly basis, Steve didn't own one that would do the job so made one just for this solo. The guitar took just one day to make and necessarily had a distressed finish. sample in media player

The solo was his own private joke with himself, being one of the most complex things he could write or play ~ intended to be recognised by other listening musicians as being performed on a "Telecaster"™ ® Fender style guitar ~ but to serve specifically as talk-over music...

Just a moment here to just say "Thanks, Leo Fender". That's all.

But in 1990 the DJ is suspected as being caught with his hand in the cash register drawer over a supposed "Charity Record", derived from a jingle (written and recorded by Steve and the engineer) and it all turns into a very nasty bucket of worms...

The DJ is sacked from the radio station and Steve is thrown into withdrawal...

A hobby is needed to relax so Archery enters the field. A period of bow, arrow, crossbow and bolt-making ensues.

The Plastic Anti-feedback acoustic Guitar:~

By 1993 he is hot on the trail, after many years of failed experiment, towards a breakthrough in the design of a "disposable" acoustic guitar that can be made from plastic, that will sound as good as any wooden instrument. Such a design has been long sought after by many luthiers but they are mostly grounded in the minutia of traditional wooden guitar construction methods and Steve knows very little of these niceties, having concentrated on 'plank' electric solids. Not only does the new formula work well acoustically but when fitted with a transducer "bug", the plastic guitar cannot be induced to feed-back, even at massive output amplifier volume...

click picture for more information:>>>

Short sample Long sample

Full track embedded in a page

A major US manufacturer becomes interested and is thoroughly impressed by the demonstation but mysteriously drops out of the deal. This and later developments convince Steve that the problems his father had had with the Freemasons were to blight his family name forever...

But he continues to use the plastic guitar format to make a selection of weird and strange instruments; such as this multi-stringed fretless harp-sitar... and another one similar(wav file in media player)

The QY20 Sequencer & The St.George Suite.

For the FM radio jingle work he has learned the rudimental basics of MIDI sequence programming but when Yamaha bring out the infamous QY20 pocket-sized sequencer, he has the tool he needs to programme the orchestral works he's had buzzing around his head for years. Six months of programming in step-write result in The St. George Suite and he sends the piece on CD to the makers of the machine who immediately order 20 CD copies for their sales staff to use as demonstration of the machine's potential. They are impressed.

Copies go around the world but the old jinx on the family name kicks in and there is nothing but deafening silence by way of reaction and nobody will even come to the phone...

A second visit to the Mediterranean further convinces him that all is not right with the history books

The String hypothesis explains perfecly the fact that we can't emulate the great feats of the ancient world:- the string eventually runs out, wherever we go among the stars and settle to start again with another "Eden" planet; it has ever been so.

But 1995 sees a major change and this leads to disaster on an unprecedented scale. The crooked DJ (from 1989-1990) calls again to say he's got a new job on national radio and requests that Steve should make a new set of jingles for his show. Steve is wary but agrees, taking on board a new writing partner. The promised royalties sound great so he spends three months writing, arranging and producing a fresh set of 120 jingles (small sample here). Live radio appearances, improvising on-the-spot jingles to phone-in listener suggestions tax their capabilities to the limit. Their gruelling schedule of non-stop music production leads to exhaustion and weakens their defences to what is to follow:-

It is a confidence trick on the part of the DJ (again). The royalties are truly miniscule in reality compared to what has been promised and both Steve and his partner are bankrupted. Studio costs have been enormous and the guitarist customers have gone elsewhere to have their instruments "race-tuned". Twenty years of hard-won good will is lost forever. Deep anger.

Severe clinical depression sets in with a large smattering of alcohol. What follows for Steve is a nervous breakdown, divorce and a period of psychiatric care, culminating in a failed suicide attempt. rosalouisa

Unable to face the derision of those around him at his misfortune he moves to Wales and begins, in convalescence, to surf the local library internet terminal to further his knowledge regarding particle physics. It is at this point that he discovers the area of science known as sonoluminescence. He realises that this is the key to his previous hypothesis and that the machine he has already designed fits the bill perfectly and that he needs to make no alterations at all to it; he'd got its proportions right first time around. He launches into postal land mail communication again with The Ministry of Defence, in the hope that they will understand the possible connection between sonoluminescence and string. He supplies drawings and all that he can give in terms of written specification.

He is shocked to discover that they don't have any research facilities of any kind and that everything is always put out to private contractors. They will not even discuss sonoluminescence and confine him to the "Crank and nutter" folder. Again. Their replies to his communication are meaningless and irrelevant, abounding with mis-quotes and demonstrate that the subject has not been given anything more than a cusory sneering glance:-

From the UK MOD:- "Mr. Acworth's jump from the particle physics world 'Superstring Theory' to music strings is a quantum leap in the wrong direction, and I'm afraid a perfect example of the old proverb 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. Superstrings were nothing to do with musical string or any other strings for that matter, the word was used as a convenient description of the matter that forms the basic building blocks of the universe... Using a coiled magnetic field to contain plasma is not a new idea; it is the basis of the dream of cheap electricity from ZETA to the present day 'Tokomaks'. An open-ended coil will not contain plasma; the system must be a toroid. Apart from anything else a wound string built on the basis of a music string would not have the required strength. I cannot see any future in pursuing this idea."

"A wound musical string such as a guitar string relies on the central core for its strength. The coiled section is there to add weight, and therefor lower the frequency; it adds nothing to the strength of the string. The only use for the 'flat' wound string is to enable a rock and roll guitarist to slide his or her fingers over the fret board more quickly. The sustain properties of a musical instrument depend upon the material of which the instrument is made and the manner of playing, rather than the string. A violin has sustain because the bow constantly vibrates the string; indeed the body of a violin is heavily varnished in an attempt to quieten the instrument. On the other hand an acoustic guitar has poor sustain and is only lightly varnished so as not to kill any sustain that there is; there have also been many many experiments with different shaped back and side panels to eliminate dead spots and areas where sound can be 'trapped'.

I would refer Mr. Acworth to the experiments by Leo Fender and Les Paul, who independently found that a guitar string had more sustain when used on a solid body. Hence, the development of the solid bodied electric guitar. The majority of these are made of a hard wood and the best have steel or brass inserts under the bridge to increase sustain. The feedback Mr. Acworth mentions is no more than the effect of taking an electric guitar close to its associated speaker, when feedback or 'howl round' becomes obvious.

I have departed from Mr. Acworth's plasma containment idea to discuss his other concepts. I defer to his knowledge of music strings, but I am sure that he will agree with me that a string is only as good as the instrument it is fitted to. I do not wish to appear flippant, but knowledge of the acoustic properties of catgut and brass does not explain Beethoven's fifth symphony. Likewise knowledge of musical string construction does not add to the theory of particle physics..."

Once again thank you for for sending such a well-supported explanation of your idea to support a speaking length of ionising gas plasma within a composite music string. It is with regret that I have to send what I know will be a disappointing reply but as previously stated our knowledge of music string behaviour is limited. On the other hand the basics of particle physics is fully understood but not as a combined concept within a composite wound music string. Yours sincerely...

So; if it's all a bunch of nonsense (disregarding the fact that they have completely misunderstood the entire concept and it is obvious that nobody has actually read the thing through properly), he decides to request carte blanche to publish.They reply:-

This is an extremely stressful period and, probably due to just that fact (and here is where the special effects would become necessary), Steve experiences what is commonly described as a "Walk-in". This is somewhere between a complete hallucination and a ghostly haunting. The event is described here. In brief, he is visited by the apparition of Leonardo Da Vinci, who hangs around, invisible to everybody else of course but who gives him a lesson in painting (visualisation technique) to help with the fire-hoses in the painting he is currently working on - and again quotes the burning statement, in précis:-

"You will be the man who makes toys for the children who ride in spaceships".

"fire horses"

Rather like the guy in "Close Encounters", who fixates on the mountain, this event reinforces his life-long obsession with all things Leonardo-esque and he launches into copy painting the Mona Lisa and the Virgin with St. Ann - a task made difficult by his partial colour-blindness and complete lack of formal painting discipline (never having been to Art College).

If you have explored this CDROM, you'll know that the author is an intensely practical and fairly logical person. That "walk-in" event seemed extremely real and its effect was nothing if not humbling. I have no answers to it except that it raised in my mind the question of the direction of time itself.

(Note:- Somewhat bizarrely, I'd recorded this track back in 1987 (written in 1969) on a crude 4-track tape machine (set in a page here). Titled "My Friend Leonardo", it contains references to carbon fibre and gravity. Inspired by a sci-fi story about someone who had a theory that his "Virgin of The Rocks" painting was done on the Moon, because of the strange and ethereal lighting.)

So realising that in this modern age, the only way to be taken seriously is to provide the information in digital format, he gets his first computer in April 2001 and starts from the beginning again, learning how to cope (or not as the case may be), with Mr, Gates' fabulously flawed operating system. You are witnessing the results.

If you can grasp the idea, your reaction will be extremely rare.

Since the publication of the web site: (live internet link) http://www.sparkspin.btinternet.co.uk (complete site folder on this CDROM) despite numerous polite approaches, much abuse has been hurled at the author from the direction of the scientific community; this is certainly understandable and merely serves to amuse. This story isn't over. It is happenning now.

Moreover it is the firm belief of the author that the "Sonoluminescence Projector" is a genuinely practical device that, when built, will provide at least and probably more than:-

1:- Localised gravity direction control (thus negating destructive asteroid collision risk).

2:- An immensely powerful laser-type weapon that runs on water (and a drop of mercury).

3:- An electromagnetic field which can disable all local conventional electronic systems.

So, conventional fuel-cell technologies pale into insignificance beside the Axis Node Key Handle (The Ankh). The wheel, rocket and wing are potentially obsoleted overnight along, potentially, with the oil industry and world economy; but this cannot be allowed to happen and the Ankh can only be made by those holding the correct exact formula for the string. The machine provides everything necessary for human survival in terms of warmth, heat, light, transport and defence. In the wake of its development the planet returns to a much greener state; such nuclear waste as already exists can be safely shipped out cheaply to the Moon (which is no longer required as a "springboard" for outward bound expeditions) and Mankind truly enters The Space Age properly. The dream of mass-exodus to other galaxies becomes a reality instead of science fiction as Man becomes God (as is his true vocation).

For the immediate future though, just the ability to cease the destructive methods of current civilization is boon enough.

Oh, what fun!

(Not to mention the vast volumes of ice which can suddenly be moved with ease to desert areas; thus enabling their conversion in a very short space of time to fertile and productive agricultural landscapes.)

In purely practical terms we grow to acknowledge that we need to to take with us when we "boldly go" some stuff that will work if we only manage to crash-land. One thing that will give us a survival advantage, "grounded" on an Earth-type planet, would be an axe-head, cast in a commonly available ore which we could quickly learn to mine and process.

This artifact happens to be the only suitably portable "off-switch" that works safely with the Ankh: the copper or bronze double-axe (for safety best used mounted on the end of a stick).

In crude ingot form it can easily be adopted as an exchange currency. Unless we take a string factory with us though, our main tool will soon become redundant and within a couple of generations will pass into myth and legend. The crude symbology will become religion and as was the case with the Minoan civilization, major works of masonry-cutting are gradually reduced in scale down to fine engraving as the string gradually runs out...

There has been much talk of "Grand Unified Theories" and "A Theory of Everything" . Well, here is, at long and truthful last:- the complete answer in layman's terms, expressed using just one number (2); it is irrefutable simple logic.

"Any single bubble sonoluminescence collapse event, since it involves the generation of light by its occurrence, must by definition involve an electromagnetic pulse. Therefore if any two such events occur at precisely the same time and in the same container, then in the direction (vector) described by the said two position / events, a discrete wavelength is surely illustrated by the distance of their separation and that wavelength defines a new discrete frequency."

How is the machine assembled?

Do please let me know if you have any reaction at all to this synopsis, especially if you can find any flaw in the basic hypothesis.

I have done all that I can. The theory now needs practical testing.

must fly; best wishes... steve acworth:~

sparkspin@btinternet.com

The author Steven R. M. Acworth is a full member of The Perfoming Rights Society (PRS) but currently unaffiliated with or to any other commercial organisation and despite a life-long association with music and the music business has never signed a recording contract.

The author holds copyright in the name quantumprobabilitydrivetechnologies