PSY Penang: Are you ready for BN audio analysis

Are you ready for PSY? or are you ready for some PYSICS? Well, that’s too nerdy even for me.

The reality is that if you want to know whether penang-ites said a big ‘NO’ or ‘YES’ when Najib asked them if they were ready for BN? The answer doesn’t lie with political blogs or with the politicians. The answer lies in Physics.

Sound waves, just like all other waves can easily be visualized in terms of their waveforms, and by comparing the waveforms from the audio of 5 youtube videos which have people responding either YES or NO you can easily try to figure out which was forged or which was genuine.

Obviously they all look like jagged waveforms, but as far as I’m concerned of they all look similar enough that I’m convinced there were no forgeries. This is genuine audio to me, but of course I’m not the audio expert.The answer is quite straightforward, it’s highly unlikely that a huge BN event featuring the Prime Minister would not have a significant number of BN supporters present. It’s also highly unlikely that an event with a superstar like PSY would not have a high number of ‘regular’ folks present–and in a state like Penang that has huge opposition presence and support–most of those ‘regular’ folks would be oppositions supporters who were not ready for BN.

If anything it appears to me that the video is proof of a divisive polarity in Malaysia, and that this election would be the closest we’ve ever seen as a nation. More importantly, it’s also a sign that we can’t believe everything we see on youtube, depending on where the video was shot, you either hear loud a ‘YES’ or a loud ‘NO’, taken together though–all you get is a lot of inaudible noise and it’s hard to make out the yes or the no.

Fortunately, Physics allows us to check the audio and verify–instead of relying on political blogs who have vested interest. It’s a shame we would sooner resort to ‘political’ solutions to problems, rather than ‘scientific’ ones.

For the full audio of all 5 youtube videos compressed into one, check this little ‘compilation’ I’ve put together, in my brand new spanking new HTML5 embed below.

The loud yes towards the end was from the BN video (someone must be very near the mic for that to happen). You can actually ‘normalize’ and filter him out, but I’ll leave the audio manipulations to the experts. If you’d like a copy of the audacity project file I put together, drop me an email and I’ll send it over.

Till then remember–science rules!