Hi, I’m doing a reaserch on the german autobahn and I stumbled uppon a page saying that the german autobahn at the french-german border near Aachen has been specially engeneered to sing the german national anthem (through the friction with the tires).
At first I didn’t beleive it but then there are two posts that say it is true…so, is it really true? if so, how did they do it?
here’s a link of the article:
Um, you know that’s not the “serious news” BBC, that’s the “entertainment” BBC–BBC1? Specifically, if you back up the URL, you get to “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and other entertainment features.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/
Plus the fact that your linked article is titled “The Director’s Cut”. It’s not a serious news item, in other words–it’s a joke, a humor piece (down at the bottom it says “Comment on this entry”).
I notice that in common with many comedy pieces, it mixes serious advice with the sly and the offbeat (“Never stop for taking up hitchhikers outside regular stopping places, no matter how many towels they use to flag you down”, “Cars with US number plates, french or japanese cars: mostly harmless”).
I don’t see how corrugated concrete could be engineered to play something as complex as “Deutscheland Uber Alles”.
Midi file.
http://www.germanembassyottawa.org/gdp/germany2.mid
Googling “Koln‑Aachen Autobahn A-4 anthem” and such-like isn’t turning up anything.
Um, you ARE aware that just because you see a post on an Internet message board saying, “No, it’s not a joke, I saw it in the ADAC [whatever that is] magazine,” doesn’t mean it’s true?
And note the disclaimer at the bottom:
One vote here for “joke”.
I don’t know whether the specific claim is true or not, but I don’t see how it would be difficult to do. Sometimes roads have rumble strips cut into them; when you drive over them, you hear a sound (no doubt that’s the reason they’re called rumble strips). These are formed of evenly-spaced grooves running across the road. By varying the spacing between the grooves, you could get different-pitched rumbles and play pretty much any tune you want.
Yeah, and your speed would determine the key. 
In practice I think this would be much harder to achieve than you think. The noise generated isn’t really a note, and it would depend on things like tyre size, type, car size etc. Also, if you were slowing down or speeding up the tune wouldn’t work.
And not to mention the increase in the # of accidents due to people not paying attention to the traffic, suddenly changing their speed just to see how it sounds, etc…
A small nitpick. “Deutschland Uber Alles” is not the German national anthem. The third verse of “Deutschlandlied” is Germany’s national anthem.
The term “Deutschland Uber Alles” only occurs in the first verse of the Deutschlandlied and that verse (and the second verse) are not part of the national anthem.
Part of the confusion on this issue arises because, during the Nazi period, the first verse of the Deutschlandlied was grafted on to the front of the “Horst Wessell Song”.
It’s funny; I had the idea years ago (on some road trip) that the road could be tailored like a record groove to “play” speech such as “Caution”, “Warning”, and the like…
Such an action would probably have problems with " T " and " B ", etc, just like the Voder in 1940. It would be neat though…and really, generating music through the friction of tires on pavement isn’t that farfetched at all.
Some of the roads in East Texas do play a song when you drive over them. I’m not sure what the name of the song is, but it sounds like some kind of atonal industrial-noise piece.
There’s a road around here that plays a Keith Moon drum solo 
BBC1 is still relatively serious - we pay a license tax for it, so they have to answer to the British public (via MP’s who keep a close eye on our beloved National TV) for trashy programs etc.
Still, this is on a page where anyone can register and then input information, so it’s not guaranteed.
There is a lot of sensible looking information and advice, but it would be perfectly acceptable to slip a witty joke in there too.
So you need to double check - how about a German site?
Being from Cologne, Germany and driving a lot along the A4 I can assure that there is nothing special with the autobahn concrete, no song whatsoever. (By the way: It’s the Belgian-German border south of Aachen, or the Dutch-German border north of Aachen, not the French border)
But perhaps it’s only my car not playing songs…
Regarding the German anthem: It’s indeed only the 3rd stanza/verse that is sung (beginning with “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” - “unity and justice and freedom”). The first two stanzas are not part of the anthem (although contrary to some belief they are not unconstitutional).
I did a google search on ‘Autobahn’ and ‘Deutschlandlied’ and I think I found the source of this information. It seems there is a German artist called Johannes Schenk, who actually came up with this idea after driving over a stretch of the A3 near Leverkusen which produces an almost musical sound (I can confirm this since I have driven that stretch of the Autobahn many times myself).
He was further inspired by Helmut Kohl’s speech at the time of the reunification, saying that with the help of all Germans, the neglected eastern part of Germany would be turned into ‘bluehende Landschaften’, or in English ‘blooming landscapes’. 
He then came up with the idea to put special profiles into the Autobahnen at every border crossing and actually seriously proposed this and sent several letters to ‘people in power’. The complete correspondence and further information can be seen here (at least for those that read German).
The entire idea was also written up in the German satire magazine ‘Titanic’ (kind of like the German print version of the Onion). And one page from the Heise Verlag (publisher of several computer magazines) actually has links to the h2g2 page alongside a link to Johaness Schenk’s page. Coincidence?
It may be a hoax, but at least it’s an Evil Genius hoax…
When I was in college, someone got a ballon with a somewhat thick plastic ribbon which, when you ran your fingernail along it, would say “Happy Birthday”. I (briefly) tried googling for an example, but I couldn’t find the magic combination of words.
However, it’s perfectly true that the motors of Montreal metro cars play the first three notes of the “Fanfare for the Common Man”
I think Mycroft wins. Nice Googling.
Shhhhh don’t give “them” any ideas. I bet soon we’ll be hearing ad jingles, from the groves in the roads.
I thought I’d clarify briefly what h2g2 is about, as I’m a member of it. h2g2 is supposed to be a quirky but factual encylopedia, it is billed as the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy - earth edition, and was set up by Douglas adams, who wrote the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.
Anyone can write something for the guide, with the only real standards being to avoid bad language, copyright violations and other things like that, with no actual standards of accuracy.
There is however the edited guide, which does have such standards. Every entry submitted for the edited entry is commented on by loads of other members, who complain if it is innacurate, biased, or have any other complaints. Then, the best of that lot get picked by scouts, (such as me) who are also members of the public who volunteer to search of the submissions, which then get edited. It is the BBC who run the site now, and they have to agree with what we pick, by the way, but I think their priority is avoiding bad language, copyright issues, and things like that.
So the edited guide is a place where the facts relating to the entry should have been checked out, and so should be more reliable as a source of information. This doesn’t mean they have to be about serious subjects, in fact, you can get weird subjects such as this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A724394, as well as more serious subjects. Also, serious subjects can be treated with a sense of humour sometimes.
However, the entry about the autobahm and the national anthem is not edited, so doesn’t have that stamp of approval. It doesn’t mean it is wrong, but does mean it is perhaps less reliable than if it was edited. It is only really as reliable as the source of the information, which seems to be a ADAC member’s magazine.
So, if you back up, do you hear satanic messages?