The Singing Roads of Japan

In 1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. patent office, was famously quoted saying that “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

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Evidently the Japanese didn’t get the memo. And you have to hand it to them – they certainly have no shortage of innovation. Their latest project – “The Melody Road” – is interesting to say the least. One wonders if these kinds of inane projects are tax-payer funded.

Japanese Melody Road

According to Techeblog:

…the ‘melody road’, can be seen above and the grooves are between 6 and 12mm apart: the narrower the interval, the higher the pitch. these stretches of road, each playing a different tune, can currently be found in 3 places in japan – hokkaido, wakayama and gunma – with the optimum musical speed being a depressingly slow 28mph

Here’s a glimpse of the road “in action”:

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