Tintin Forums

labrador road 26 (from 'Borduria symbol change' thread)
Found this really amazing product:
http://www.roehm.com/en/plexiglas?content=/en/plexiglas/products/overv iew/_plexiglas_soundstop/noise_barriers

I'll send the company a mail asking when the soundprotecting properties was discovered. Post the answer when I recieve it.
Feels like we stumbled on to something big here.

- Could the plexiglas / Plekszy-Gladz pun mean something, in the light of Tintin's 'totally unique world'*?

According to the above-quoted site, plexiglas is a transparent material also used as a sound barrier. A sound barrier is likely liable to hinder word transmission, and might thus stand for a language barrier. But, as plexiglas does remain quite transparent** over time, it can't be used as a screen and can't stand for an image barrier.

Considering plexiglas' properties mirror those of an 'unseen rebus', i.e. an unheard language & clearly delineated images, maybe Calculus' ultrasonic weapon is required by the Taschists to break some 'transparent' & invisible & sympathetic* sound barrier via a much amplified* bat*-like transmission system?

Maybe the four writing-like changing Bordurian army symbols echo 'invisibly' the four image-like Syldavian colour banners that mirror the colours of the books' spines?


- What else could a language barrier or a sound barrier mean, in Tintin's 'unique world'?
In The Black Island Tintin crosses 'language barriers'* liable to translate 'L'Ile Noir' into 'East Indies'*, whereas in Flight 714* he crosses the 'sound barrier' aboard Carreidas' supersonic jet (p.8, A1 + p.11, B3) before getting to the East Indies, where 'Sondonesians' live.

Maybe 'Tintin, Haddock & the others'* need an 'ultrasonic' (Mach III) speed to break some sympathetic* bat*-like 'language barrier' connected to them, whose reported 'names' are I, i.e. match Herge's life?
Maybe Carreidas' jet is hijacked for no other purpose than to take them to East Indies, i.e. Sondonesia, to be able to hear the local language?
And maybe Vol 714 is a password* as L'Ile Noire is, but also a title more explicitly connected with 'another world of science' and with thought transmission* (Mik's), not to mention Pulau Pulau Bompa's 'visibly ciphered' language (p.41, A2)?

* please search for related threads.
** see http://www.rplastics.com/plexhistory.html (last paragraph)

Sorry to say Yamilah, but I don't understand what you mean, as usual I might add.

The Roehm company did not answer my questions I wrote them. The only thing they said was: Look on our web page. Very helpful indeed. I searched their page again but did not find the answers. I will try, one of these days, to write another person, will try Holland instead of Germany and see if they are more willing to help.

The questions I asked them were these:
1. When was it discovered that plexiglas was sound reducing?
2. When was plexiglas invented?
3. Is plexiglas also resistant to ultrasound?
4. How is plexiglas soundresistant, what happens when sound hits it, in
layman terms?
5. Is there some other facts about plexiglas and sound that could be
relevant/interesting?

I suspect the only "sound-reducing" properties of plexiglass are physical. It's likely that it does no more than glass or plywood or concrete to block sound.

labrador road 26 How is plexiglas soundresistant, what happens when sound hits it, in layman terms?

Tintin Quiz I suspect the only "sound-reducing" properties of plexiglass are physical. It's likely that it does no more than glass or plywood or concrete to block sound.

It's all to do with resonance. The "sound-reducing" properties of any material depends on its density and resonant frequency. Acrylic sheet (which Plexiglas is) has a lower resonant frequency than glass so it's often used as a substitute if soundproofing or sound resistant material is needed, like on airport walkways or recording studio windows.

In laymans terms plastic is much bendier than glass so if it's hit with a really heavy sound or vibration it won't shatter.

And the moral of the story: people who live in glass houses should use acrylic sheet.

Thanks for the answer to one of my questions I asked the Roehm company and they ignored.

labrador road 26

2. When was plexiglas invented?

Well, I copied your question into Google, and it came up with plexiglas, or polymerized methyl methacrylate, was invented by a Canadian, William Chalmers at McGill University in 1930/1931 (depending on where you look - 1931 seems more popular).

Hope this helps!

labrador road 26
I'll send the company a mail asking when the soundprotecting properties [of plexiglas] was discovered. (...)
Feels like we stumbled on to something big here.

If plexiglas was invented in 1930/1931, its sound barrier properties were likely discovered in the early thirties.
How could plexiglas, its sound barrier property and the 30's be 'something big'?

If plexiglas was invented in 1930/1931, its sound barrier properties were likely discovered in the early thirties.
How could plexiglas, its sound barrier property and the 30's be 'something big'?
I haven't found any information concerning when the sound reducing properties was discovered, and did Hergé know this when he named Plekszy-Gladz. Or was it just a good name? Plexi-glas was mainly used in aircrafts during WWII (from what I gathered) and was used for its durability not its sound proofness.

If Hergé knew about plexi-glas he surely had some reason to name the Bordurian with a similar name. A clue if you will. Also remember that Castafiore has the ability to shatter glass and she performed in Borduria so there might be a connection between her and Calculus inventing the ultra-sound device.

This might of course just be coincidences, but I find the connections intriguing.

labrador road 26 I haven't found any information concerning when the sound reducing properties was discovered, and did Hergé know this when he named Plekszy-Gladz.

I expect the scientists that made plexiglas would've been aware of the sound resistant potential from the start as this was just basic physics. Other types of plastics had been in development years before plexiglas and it's likely the physical properties had been well researched.

As for whether Hergé knew about it; well he obviously knew that some types of plastic glass were stronger than ordinary glass - see Destination Moon where calculus tests his 'multiplex' helmet by getting someone to wallop him over the head with a big lump hammer!

Castafiore has the ability to shatter glass and she performed in Borduria so there might be a connection between her and Calculus inventing the ultra-sound device.

Castafiore as a sonic weapon? Now there's a thought...!

Interestingly, Hergé wanted to design a very special cover for Casterman to use on The Calculus Affair when first published, over fifty years ago.

As reported by Pierre Assouline in Herge, 1996 (Folio p.517), he wanted a hard transparent plexiglas-like sheet, scored like a broken window, to cover the title picture of this album; Casterman refused, and so the book came out with the strange "opaque and broken yellow window-pane" drawing we all know.
Maybe the transparency of plexiglas and its sound- or language-barrier properties were important to Hergé, and some special clue about the subject will be given by "Hergé 007"*?

* please search for related thread.