Tibetan Singing Bowls
July 6, 2011 4:05 PM   Subscribe

 
You can pretty reliably produce those skittering antibubbles by flicking the side of a large, mostly full plastic bottle at the level of the liquid.

Also, maybe it's because I'm sleepy, but I think the guy in the BBC video should narrate everything.
posted by lucidium at 4:21 PM on July 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


chaotic secrets! you must give them up, o singing bowls!
your waters dancing like the waves that break on rocky shoals!
through SCIENCE we will solve the ancient mysteries! behold!
chaotic secrets? you must give them up, o singing bowls!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:09 PM on July 6, 2011 [4 favorites]


Wait, you're supposed to put water in them? I've been filling mine with ice cream!
posted by infinitywaltz at 5:40 PM on July 6, 2011 [3 favorites]


Ah, Faraday waves. I think Faraday did all the science you could do with just observation. They're still trying to figure it out the fluid dynamics.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:44 PM on July 6, 2011


Whoa-hm.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:12 PM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Well, am I relieved that no esoteric secrets were revealed in these links!

One helpful bit of esoteric information I would like to add is this: sound (whether the sound of a Zen woodblock or a woo-woo singing bowl) has always had a special relationship to enlightenment, if only an experience of "mini-satori." This is because of the immediacy of sound, I'm guessing. Interpreting visual stimuli or language usually involves a little more mental filtering, but sound can hit you in the gut faster than any other sense can. (The tactile sense, too, but that's another story, especially given the fact that meditative experience is usually arranged to diminish this input.)

I am happy to see the absence of quantum mechanics invoked as explanation here.
posted by kozad at 8:43 PM on July 6, 2011


From the abstract of the study: Our study indicates that drops may be levitated on the fluid surface, induced to bounce on or skip across the vibrating fluid surface.

Captain Obvious here, but I find it interesting that our understanding of reality is heavily influenced by the limited range (medium size, medium speed) of our senses. Thank the gods for high-speed cameras, or this nugget of coolness would remain unknown*.

*Caveats abound. This physical phenomenon was probably already known to the science of fluid dynamics (but probably not in this context). I don't know if they really used a high-speed camera. I don't really know anything. Etc...
posted by troll at 10:48 PM on July 6, 2011


« Older Oceans 1   |   lovable dogs Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments