If the plate is vibratin', do be note-takin'
June 11, 2018 11:27 AM   Subscribe

Here's a gorgeous collection of Chladni figures, illustrations of vibration patterns by acoustics pioneer Ernst Chladni. Full scan of the original 18th C. German text (illustrations start around page 90). Hat tip to interrobang.

Chladni and cymatics variously previously on MetaFilter: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014.
posted by cortex (11 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm guessing those speckled bits on e.g. figure 49 are dead zones where particles collect. That is weird! I didn't know those nodes could be anything other than lines, but in some figures there are these big ellipses that... aren't moving? Am I interpreting this right?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:18 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is rad.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 1:22 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


They reminded me of electron orbitals so I did some googling:

Solving Schrödinger's three-dimensional differential equation might have been daunting, but it was not, because the necessary formulas had been worked out more than a century earlier in connection with acoustics. Acoustical "Chladni" figures show how nodal patterns relate to frequencies.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [5 favorites]


Ha!
posted by cortex at 2:10 PM on June 11, 2018


I want these to be embroidered and/or made into quilt blocks.
posted by clavicle at 2:39 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


or better yet, someone should use their laser cutter to create tileable sets of these and other geometric phenomena.

(I kid because I love... y'all should really be checking out cortex's twitter... beautiful stuff)
posted by gwint at 3:03 PM on June 11, 2018


Why not both though. (I had the same thought about cortex’s tiles as quilt blocks, I have it about a lot of things.)
posted by clavicle at 3:29 PM on June 11, 2018


Be careful with these patterns, as some have been known to raise Australians from the dead.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


Jpfed, yes! Those are areas lightly covered with sand/flour. In a class in college, a teacher built and demonstrated a Chladni apparatus. The lines and shapes form very quickly (it’s like a magic trick) and vibrate up and down and ever so slightly side-to-side while the bow is applied.
posted by holyrood at 6:37 PM on June 11, 2018


HI I'M ERNST CHLADNI AND I COULD VIBRATE A PLATE OF SAND.
posted by Reverend John at 7:56 PM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


Let's see them in action in the hands of Castle Frightenstein's resident too-sane-to-be-mad too-mad-to-be-sane scientist, Julius Sumner Miller.
posted by BiggerJ at 4:43 AM on June 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


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