What the hells going on with my toothbrush?

[Vast]

So I was brushing my teeth with an electric toothbrush when I walked into the room where I have the computer, and the screen was moving as though you were looking at it under water. At this point I was about 3 meters away from the monitor, so I took the toothbrush out of my mouth and although it was still running the screen stopped moving. Even if I held the electric toothbrush while running right up against the monitor it did nothing, so is there something in my mouth that might be causing it to increase a distortion to the monitor? Such as my teeth or something? Can someone else please try this, and tell me if the same thing happens?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It must either be that you are acting as an antenna, which humans are very good at by chance, or the extra load produced by using the brush created the critical EM noise.

I would: Try pushing the running brush against something [not you] and see if that makes a difference. Try running it in your mouth without loading down the motor. Try running it while pressed against your hand. Try cupping your hand around the device and loading it down.

 

[Moonbear]

Don't listen to Ivan, just look at his avatar...he's one of those aliens that planted the microchip in your head that's getting feedback from the toothbrush! The only way to avoid the feedback is to wear an aluminum foil hat.

I don't know the real answer, but you've convinced me to stick to the old-fashioned, hand-powered toothbrush.

 

[polyb]

Nothing like that is happening, c'mon Ivan, your head as an attena? . Try this as an explanation: your toothbrush is imparting small pertubations to your head that is causing an "asynchronos" view of your monitor which makes it look all "wavy", in a way this is analogous to filming a TV or monitor except it is a mechanical effect. Trying using your toothbrush and looking your TV or digital clock, you should get a similar effect. You can also get the same effect by placing a massager on your head and looking at any of these things, I know because I too have goofed around and seen such effects!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Nothing like that is happening, c'mon Ivan, your head as an attena? .

Absolutely. The human body can act very efficiently as an antenna. In fact some technolgies now make use of this fact. But...



okay, I was assuming that his head wasn't just vibrating!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Since you all dare to doubt Ivan.

Radio reception - You may have noticed that, when you touch an antenna, the reception gets better on a TV or radio. That's because the human body makes a pretty good antenna. There are even small LCD TVs that have a conductive neck strap so that the user acts as the antenna!

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question42.htm

I have seen this sort of thing affect my TV many times while working on open circuits.

 

[gerben]

of course it depends on how vigorously you brush your teeth, but I assure you I get the same effect with a manual powered tooth-brush (it is just your visual sense being quicker than your organ of balance)..

 

[Tsu]

What is the 'organ of balance' I don't think I've ever heard about these?

 

[gerben]

Well, it is in your ear, more or less, it can register the tilt of your head as well as quick movements of the head...

Perhaps "equilibrium organ" is a better term?
How do you summarise the "semicircular canals and otholyths" together as a sense organ?

 

[BobG]

The cupula? http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/alcohol/alcohol.jsp?id=22144500

Alcohol has a lower density than water, and when you get drunk, that lower density creates a "light spot" in the inner ear fluid. When you lie down, that light spot allows a sensor called the cupula to sink, sending a faulty report to the brain that your head is rotating and that your eyes need to rotate too. So when you're lying with your right cheek on the dance floor, your eyeballs are turning slowly to the left, then flicking quickly back to the right-and therein lies the wooziness. Lie with the other cheek down, and the world spins the other way. The effect, says Money, peaks at around an hour and a half after a heavy drinking bout begins-and revisits you in reverse about 10 hours later.

To prove this, Money got 10 volunteers to drink deuterium oxide, or heavy water. This created a "heavy" spot, so the spinning was in the opposite direction to that induced by alcohol. In cats, he showed that the effects of the alcohol and the heavy water canceled each other out (Nature, vol 247, p 404). Fred Miles of the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, suggests mixing all drinks with heavy water to keep the specific gravity at one, the same as body fluids, to avoid the post-indulgence spins. "The problem is," he says, "this makes the cocktails very expensive!"

So much for my idea that the room must spin the opposite direction if you get drunk in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

[matthyaouw]

The same effect can be had by watching TV while eating certain types of crisps. Unless I've been eating some crazy stuff, I think that debunks Ivan's theory pretty well.

 

[franznietzsche]

Its far morelikely that the tooth brush is causing your head to vibrate, making the screen appear to become distorted. Same thing happens when i play my saxophone.

 

[Tsu]

Well, it is in your ear, more or less, it can register the tilt of your head as well as quick movements of the head...

Perhaps "equilibrium organ" is a better term?
How do you summarise the "semicircular canals and otholyths" together as a sense organ?

Well, there's more to it than that, and there really is no single 'organ' of balance. Your sense of balance is controlled by several systems located within the temporal bone, including the vestibular system and the mastoid air cells.

 

[gerben]

Well, there's more to it than that, and there really is no single 'organ' of balance. Your sense of balance is controlled by several systems located within the temporal bone, including the vestibular system and the mastoid air cells.

Yes, I know. I wanted to summarise all the structures in the the inner-ear that have an influence on your sense of balance. Because your head shakes when you brush your theet the images of the world move on your retinas. Your brain has to compare the shaking motion of the head with the motion on the retinas to determine whether you move or whether it is the outside world that moves. The movement of your head is registered by the structures in your inner ear. The signals from these structures are more sluggish (they are like a low-pass filter) than the signals form the retina so if you move your head very fast the "organ of balance" does not register all the movement that the retinas register and you get the impression that the world shakes instead of your head.

 

[Vast]

Actually I just worked it out, and I wouldn’t of guessed if it wasn’t for someone else in the room telling me if the screen was moving or not. In fact I’m the only one whose seeing the screen wobble, so it is causing my eyes to see things.

 

[franznietzsche]

Actually I just worked it out, and I wouldn’t of guessed if it wasn’t for someone else in the room telling me if the screen was moving or not. In fact I’m the only one whose seeing the screen wobble, so it is causing my eyes to see things.

Like i said, same thing as when i play the saxophone, its just making your head vibrate.

 

[Moonbear]

Actually I just worked it out, and I wouldn’t of guessed if it wasn’t for someone else in the room telling me if the screen was moving or not. In fact I’m the only one whose seeing the screen wobble, so it is causing my eyes to see things.

Another good reason to switch to the good old-fashioned, hand-powered toothbrush!

 

[Mk]

I've seen this a lot, in fact I do when I'm bored:

Stare at a digital clock, and... (what do you call it?) stick out your tounge, close your lips air tight around it, and blow air out of your mouth, "spit is it?" Its not really spitting though... tiny droplets of spit fly out chaoticly of your mouth... anyway, It works best when you are chewing "Famous Amous™" cookies. Stare at a digital clock, and chew a fresh cookie, I think its because the chewing/spitting is vibrating your eyeballs slightly, therefore causing things that rapidly project light, like a computer monitor or digital clock, to shake violently... An educated guess.

Is your monitor a plasma, LCD, or CRT?

Ok, newsflash, I just tried it with an electric toothbrush, and manual, and I tried it in front of my tv CRT, and my computer's LCD, nothing happened.

 

[Chi Meson]

I've seen this a lot, in fact I do when I'm bored:

Stare at a digital clock, and... (what do you call it?) stick out your tounge, close your lips air tight around it, and blow air out of your mouth, "spit is it?" Its not really spitting though... tiny droplets of spit fly out chaoticly of your mouth...

"Blowing a raspberry" is what it's called. My 1-1/2 year old son is good at it. Same effect by trilling your tongue while making a particular pitch noise. Change the pitch around and you'll get a good resonant frequency for maximal effect. You could analyze this frequency to find the refresh rate of your monitor, but I suspect we might have better things to do.

 

[Mk]

What do raspberries have to do with it?

 

[vibration]

What brand and model# of toothbrush was this?

 

[JamesU]

vibration, this topic is almost a year old...

 

[Mk]

Does it matter?

Sorry if I should be, but vibration, I have never seen Mr. Vast here again. I do not think he will reply.