Microsoft developer Raymond Chen told the company's blog about very strange cases during Windows XP, when some laptops failed after playing Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation clip.
This was faced by one of the major laptop manufacturers, who, during the search for the cause, found out that the problem also affects devices from other manufacturers. Moreover, it turned out that not only the computers on which the track is being played fail, but also the PCs located nearby.
It turned out that the reason for all the breakdowns is the same — Janet Jackson's song contained one of the resonant frequencies of laptop hard drives running at 5400 rpm. Simply put, the track resonated with the hard drive and disabled it.
The manufacturer solved the problem by adding a special filter to the audio viewer that detected and removed unwanted frequencies during audio playback.
Raymond Chen notes that this case resembles the story of the Tacoma Bridge. In the 1940s it was the third longest suspension bridge in the world (1.65 km). It was called one of the strongest and most flexible, but a few months after the opening it collapsed from a strong wind. Subsequent tests showed that the powerful structure was very vulnerable to simple vibrations created by certain gusts of wind. These lessons were taken into account in the construction of all subsequent bridges.
