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In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 187 points 7 months ago (14 children)

Fun fact: this is where the "banana connector" came from. Before copper was discovered, early humans used bananas for all their audio connections. The name stuck, even though wires are made of metal today.

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  • [–] 96 points 7 months ago* (6 children)

    Additional trivia: The term "banana republic" originates from countries best known for exporting high-end audio equipment back in the day.

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  • [–] 50 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    "banana split" stems from a failed experiment where scientists tried to split audio frequencies by sticking the connectors into ice cream and running the audio through it

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  • [–] 24 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    And Bananarama was so named for their high-fidelity recordings which were performed, mixed, and recorded entirely on bananas.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    Banana boats were named for the ancient egyptian practice of drying and lashing together bundles of banana skins in what was, at the time, a highpoint in marine engineering. It did, indeed, play a role in the stealth technology used today, due to the naturally radio absorbent nature of the material. Dont believe the people who tell you they sealed the hulls with the pulp - itd just wash off once underway.

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  • [–] 18 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    TIL! It’s fucking bananas that I never knew this.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    They are often also used as a unit of measurement of relative scale, especially amongst practitioners of internet science.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Banana physicist here.

    This is actually due to a really interesting phenomenon called banana dilation. Although they may appear different sizes to the eye, bananas distort local spacetime such that they are all physically identical dimensions. This makes them a perfect and consistent measure of size.

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