The claim that almost made it?

[John Bentley]

In his latest commentary, Randi has a FAQ list. One of the questions goes something like "Have you ever had a claim that you thought might be the one to win the prize?"

Randi answers that he has never had any claims that made him wonder even a little bit. However, I seem to remember a man he investigated that claimed he could tell what music was on a record merely by looking at the grooves -- and then proceeded to do that very thing despite all of Randi's precautions. The man claimed that he was doing nothing supernatural, he just had played the records so many times that he could recognize them from the grooves, so he didn't claim the prize.

Anybody else remember this story? Do I have the facts right? I was so sure.... but that's another thread here somewhere. :)

[Rolfe]

I remember hearing about the guy on a radio programme. He could only do it with classical music from a certain period, and with entire symphonies or whatever, not excerpts. I don't know if it had to be a specific recording or not - the implication was that for the pieces he was familiar with, he could recognise any recording. He was simply so familiar with the music and the appearance of the records that he could match them.

I understand that he was never an applicant for the Challenge, but that Randi was asked to test him out just as a curiosity. He never claimed to be doing anything paranormal.

It does rather raise the question of whether someone could cheat their way into the million by some esoteric skill which they were able to make appear paranormal. I don't think the record-recognising would have done it, because it would have become clear that he was merely very good at recognising the patterns of the grooves, but maybe something else?

Rolfe.

[Jeff Corey]

Now if he could do that with a CD....

[Hastur]

Or even better, an unlabelled audiotape.

[jj]

Well, I used to "spin records" a long time ago, and yes, it is possible to recognize some recordings (on vinyl) by how the vinyl looks, let alone peering at the grooves with a good set of reading glasses.

Now CD's and tapes are another story, HOWEVER I used to have a tool that allowed one to look at the field on a tape, if one had good eyes and a high level part of the tape at hand.

So tapes might not be impossible, with tools. CD's? Well, other than to tell how much of it is recorded, not much, I think.

[carudatta]

There is a German TV show named "Wetten dass..." (meaning more or less "Let's have a bet on that") where all sorts of people claim they can do weird things - and all sorts of celebrities (politicians, actors, musicians...) have to bet on whether they can do it or not. The show has been going on for decades.

They've had people remembering the positions of fifty tennis balls in a courtyard, threading a sewing needle using a bulldozer, or judging the temperature of any liquid by sticking their nose into it.

And yes, some fifteen years ago they had two guys who did the LP stunt - they could identify about a hundred LPs just by looking at the grooves.

They said it was possible because on most LPs there are several items of music, with pauses between them - and they could tell the parts with music on them from the "empty" ones, and the whole stunt was much like recognizing a kind of bar code.

(There was a limited selection of LPs, of course each had two sides, and the two guys were allowed to freely talk to each other - all of which would tend to make it easier for them.)

[NoZed Avenger]

[pepperpot voice]

My claim is that I can burrow through an elephant.

[/pepperpot voice]

[JimTheBrit]

Originally posted by John Bentley
In his latest commentary, Randi has a FAQ list. One of the questions goes something like "Have you ever had a claim that you thought might be the one to win the prize?"

Randi answers that he has never had any claims that made him wonder even a little bit. However, I seem to remember a man he investigated that claimed he could tell what music was on a record merely by looking at the grooves -- and then proceeded to do that very thing despite all of Randi's precautions. The man claimed that he was doing nothing supernatural, he just had played the records so many times that he could recognize them from the grooves, so he didn't claim the prize.

Anybody else remember this story? Do I have the facts right? I was so sure.... but that's another thread here somewhere. :) Nov 1 2002 commentary, second article. (http://www.randi.org/jr/110102.html)

[BillyJoe]

From here (http://www.snopes.com/music/media/reader.htm)

Dr. Arthur Lintgen, a Philadelphia physician, can -- within prescribed limits -- determine which works of classical music are present on a phonograph record by "reading" the record's grooves. His ability is not the result of any trickery -- he performs the feat by combining a thorough knowledge of classical music with the technique of determining the structure and dynamics of a piece of music by examining the spacing and pattern of the grooves.

He is able to identify, almost flawlessly, orchestral music from Beethoven to the present. He performs this feat by examining the spacing and contour of the grooves on a record; from this examination he can determine how many movements a piece is divided into, how long each movement is, and the relative loudness and percussiveness of the movements. Drawing upon his encyclopedic knowledge of classical music, Lintgen can accurately identify which work fits the patterns suggested by the record grooves.

[Soapy Sam]

I just tested myself with 4 CDs.
I looked at the data side only and got all four right!

How? Just the width of the recorded area. Three of them were my own data file discs, one an AOL freebie.

So in a very vague way, you can identify CDs visually without reading the label, which should surprise nobody.
I imagine someone with a very good visual memory and too much spare time might learn to distinguish several hundred.

[EGarrett]

I also wondering what would have happened if Lintgen claimed a paranormal origin for his powers. One of Randi's control records for the experiment was called "So you want to be a magician," which to me sounds like he didn't think Lintgen was telling the truth.

[Seismosaurus]

I used to be able to do this myself, but only with a couple of records. When the light shines on the surface just right it has a different sheen in different parts of the disk, and you can see the blacker areas between tracks where there's no noise. If you see a disc often enough you can remember the patterns of light and dark on the surface and tell what disc it is.

With CDs it's much harder, but if you burn your own discs you can usually tell how much of the disc has been written on, and tell mostly full ones from mostly empty ones.

Really it's no different from looking at a pages written in a foreign language and being able to remember which one is which because you've memorised the number of different words on each line or paragraphs on each page or whatever. There's nothing remotely paranormal about it.