Why Did Bobby Fischer go Insane? By Bethany Plew
Sound has immense power over emotions. It has the power to evoke feelings of happiness, the power to lull a crying baby to sleep, the power to cause sorrow, and countless other powers. According to Ryan Littlefield, an author who is published by the University of Portsmouth, sound holds such tremendous power that technologically advanced countries secretly use it as a devastating weapon (Littlefield 1). At an infrasonic level, sound can cause insanity, brain damage, and hearing loss. Bobby Fischer, a brilliant chess player born in 1943, suffered from these same symptoms (Biography 1). Bobby’s symptoms appeared around the same time that he challenged Boris Spassky, a Russian chess grandmaster and the world chess champion, for his title (1). Russia did not want an American to steal the title, so they constantly tried to smear Bobby’s name through propaganda. Since propaganda alone did not make him less popular, Russia deci...