Cymatics is the study of the effects of sound waves on physical items. Such as water or in the case of the video above, salt. The amazing thing is the patterns formed in the loose salt by nothing but the sound waves. The sounds in the video are actually pretty jarring. So you may want to keep the volume on your speakers on low.Via Neatorama: The Effect of Sounds Waves on Salt
Cymatics: Demonstration using salt
September 4th, 2007 by Jamie Barrows | Cymatics, Salt, Sound, Video
50 comments ↓
It is so marvelous what sophisticated archtypes especially the higher notes are showing.
It’s stunning seeing this array included in nature.
God surprises me more and more everyday. How He managed this one is beyond me, but it sure is wicked cool. I have a hard time just drawing geometric figures and tessilations, but to make them by sound, that’s just crazy (in a good way).
Imagine the figures made with ultrasonic sounds.
Nice idea, ultrasound-patterns
But I suppose in reality ultrasound wouldn’t create any pattern seen the fact that ultrasound by its nature has no “mechanical impact” on air or a membrane and so couldn’t move the salt-particles.
Thats astonishing, I am amazed actually..
@ becky “God surprises me more and more everyday.”
I totally agree..
and I would like to quote from Shakespeare’s work of art “Hamlet”
“There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy”
ever tried what it could do to sugar or sand?
probably to flour?
i mean if it could happen to salt then it should be applied to other materials such as those i mentioned…
well you really amazed me
this is science you simpletons, and it’s not complicated at all. So let’s leave your “god” out of all this.
“this is science you simpletons, and it’s not complicated at all. So let’s leave your “god” out of all this.”
The fact that it is science does not have any bearing on God’s involvement in it’s creation.
You obviously do not believe in God, which is fine, but the other commentators do believe in God. And they have as much right to believe that God exists, as you do to believe God does not exist.
Show a little tolerance of other people’s beliefs instead of attacking them.
“The fact that it is science does not have any bearing on God’s involvement in it’s creation.”
And the fact that you believe in a God does not have any bearing on the fact that he doesn’t exist.
And skepticism is based in fact, science, reason and logic, whereas belief in the supernatural is based on superstition and is the exact opposite of real knowledge, In my opinion, those that express real facts about the real world actually do have more of a right to express their opinion than those who tell ridiculous stories about invisible men who live in the sky.
Ridiculous statements should be treated accordingly.
With ridicule.
Amazing how someone who claims to cling to reason doesn’t see the logic in unprovoked attacks on others simply for expressing their beliefs.
Either way, I agree. It is one of those simple, yet stunning wonders in nature.
I’d like to apologize on behalf of atheists for the smartass two posts up.
You decry smartasses whilst yourself being a smartass. I like you.
@Flowercat
“In my opinion, those that express real facts about the real world actually do have more of a right to express their opinion than those who tell ridiculous stories about invisible men who live in the sky.”
No, you are completely wrong. Everyone has the right to their own opinions. And everyone has EQUAL right to express those opinions. That is what free speech and tolerance are about.
You and I don’t have to agree with each others opinions, but we both have to put up with them. Even if we believe that that those opinions are wrong.
My comment directed at the original poster who said “There is no God” was not directed at his belief. It was directed at his attack on the beliefs of the other posters.
Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and to express opinions about those beliefs. But you don’t have to attack the beliefs of others to express your belief.
Its funny how every blog I stumble upon starts with a general discussion or awe about a video, picture, text, or similar then leads to a conflict between two or more people, moving completely off the subject in discussion. Absolutely ridiculous. ps atheists being a member of your beliefs, sometimes i feel you need to be disowned for your outrageous and never provoked attacks on believers.
I’m in pretty much absolute agreement with “the mediator”.
Does it make the same patterns every time when using the same frequency or is it random?
Thanks for replying, Jamie. Reading, my first post again, I guess I sounded a bit meaner than I intended. Just a bit of friendly teasing, really. Sometimes I am too sardonic for my own good.
“But you don’t have to attack the beliefs of others to express your belief.”
Yeah, but what if they are really really funny?
And to the Mediator, I don’t think my comments were outrageous. If someone came up to me and said that purple cats live on the moon, and they really believed it, I would make fun of them, because that is absurd and hilarious. And I feel about purple cats on the moon as I do about Jewish carpenters rising from the dead, ghosts, ouija boards, palm reading, ect.
Just because you call a silly thing “religion”, does not exempt it from criticism, and it certainly will not exempt it from a thinking person’s ridicule.
Purple cats, man. Purple cats.
As a matter of fact, I myself have seen purple cats on the moon. Thats right, and you can see them too if you look through a large reflector telescope on a full moon. They are responsible for the dark spots that can be seen with the naked eye. It helps if you really want to see them too.
I think they eat the cheese up there.
well in my opinion God and science do not contradict..
and they do not oppose each other..
both beliefs and Science work together in some way…
am not talking about supernaturals or superstition” an invisible man lives in the sky”
but i belief that there is greater power that control’s all and uses science to make the whole universe work properly..
even Albert Einstein said “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
religion cannot deny Science… as well as Science cannot deny religion…
my religion has a lot of science in it actually..
…
I’ve seen hundreds of awesome science videos with people that INTENTIONALLY POST RELIGION TO START AN ARGUMENT.
For fuck’s sakes, just enjoy the damn video.
Why put this sort of thing in a website with absolutely no theory if it’s real? Which is not to say I think it’s definitely bullshit, but it’s a little incredible, really. I want science, not just a video that could easily have been manipulated.
Thank you,
Grey
this demonstration is know as a Chladni plate. it is well documented event in nature and not that surprising.
I was going to comment on the video because I personally think that it was awesome, but as I was reading through the posts, something caught my eye. Take a look at this:
A summation of the posts so far…
1) Makes a comment about the video.
2) Brings religion into the discussion (but in context of the video).
3) Actually makes a comment on the video.
4) Response to #3, again about the video.
5) Also talks religion, then comments on the video.
6) Makes a blatant attack on the religious views of #2 and #5.
7) Tries to be nice about telling #6 that they are mad as hell that they attacked religion.
9) Writes a good passive-aggressive jab at #8, then agrees, apparently with both sides.
10) Apologizes for a previous post as the spokesperson for athiests all across the globe.
11) Another sharply worded retort from our friend Flowercat.
12) (I will assume Ms. because of the sexually ambiguous name) Ms. Barrows once again subtly hints at anger in her defense of religion, or “beliefs”.
13) Realizes what is going on. Kudos to “The Mediator”. Nevermind, they lose it and make a comment directed at the athiests.
14) Agrees with “The Mediator”.
15) Comments on the video (what a novel idea).
16) Tries to defend her own previous posts.
17) Sarcastic post that ridicules Flowercat’s attempt at an analogy.
18) Writes a well thought out post trying to bring peace and an end to the argument that is religion.
Okay, now that we’ve got the summarization out of the way, let’s look at some numbers…
6 out of the 18 posts actually refer to the video (remember that thing at the top of the page with the noise and the salt that makes cool designs because of the noise). That means 12 posts came from the kind of people who fail english class because they cannot write a response to the prompt that is given to them (the prompt in this case being an awesome video of sound affecting grains of salt). The reason that the comment box is at the bottom of the page is for you to leave a comment about a video that you clicked on because a description interested you enough to do so. End of story. It’s not there to make you fulfill your elitist sense of pride by sneering at other people’s comments.
To end here, I’ll tell you one of the best qoutes I’ve ever heard…
“Arguing in threads is like competing in the special olympics; you may win, but you’re still retarded”
–Author Unknown
P.S.– Awesome video; I wonder what the designs look like for lower pitches, or if lower pitches would actually make designs on a table that small.
My apologies to Jamie for the gender confusion. The picture of a guy with a title of ‘Jamie Barrows’ clears things up a lot. Sorry.
@Cricket
No problem about the Gender thing. Jamie is used all the time for both genders. So no big deal.
Thanks for the post. Seriously I never thought this post of what I thought was just a cool video would generate quite this level of traffic, or such a heated discussion.
Yay! I have a friend! And I don’t care what you say Cricket, my analogy was awesome. Also, since we are friends now, I feel I can tell you that your summarizing skills are unparalleled. You could probably summarize professionally if you wanted to.
But you raise a good point, and to justify the existence of this post, I will now post my sincere thoughts about the video.
It was pretty cool.
Damn it is always good to see people get along:D…
PEACE…
Moving the discussion back towards science:
“But I suppose in reality ultrasound wouldn’t create any pattern seen the fact that ultrasound by its nature has no “mechanical impact” on air or a membrane and so couldn’t move the salt-particles.”
Ultrasound waves would affect the pattern, seeing as they are still sound waves and vibrate the air, its just that we cant hear them. It would affect the pattern the same way any other frequency change would
haha, the discussion were actually more fascinating than the outrageously cool video. kudos guys ^^
Jamie, just so you know, this page has been StumbledUpon. For the video, not the discussion.
Thoughts on video: That was really cool, and I wonder what patterns would come about by playing music with high frequency sounds (such as Rock or Opera.) It would be really neat to see the image in the salt dance to the music.
Thoughts on discussion: It’s nice to see everyone back on track and talking about the video, not the Religion vs Science debate.
Religious folk: Enjoy what you see when it is wondrous and praise God for it all you want, but please leave it out of public forums. We non-God people don’t like to see it, and we knee-jerk react to it because we’re used to being attacked by you folks. You look just as foolish to us as we do to you for not being able to accept or understand your God. So please, just keep it down.
Non-Religious Folk: Just because someone mentions the big guy in the sky does NOT mean that they are attacking your beliefs and trying to shove something down your throats. Realize that in their world, the big guy in the sky is responsible for EVERYTHING that the religious-folk perceive. Themselves, the air they breathe, food tasting good, cool salt patterns, the whole enchilada. Relax, take a deep breath, and move on.
There, the world is a happier place, and now forums everywhere may sleep at night. Mediation Man, away!
@zero Glad to have you stumble this for the video. After all that was what I posted about in the first place. Lol
Zero said: “That was really cool, and I wonder what patterns would come about by playing music with high frequency sounds (such as Rock or Opera.) It would be really neat to see the image in the salt dance to the music.”
You bring up a really interesting point. It would be nice to see this type of thing being done whilst a song is playing, instead of just a pitch range. It would probably have to be a slower style of song because the designs took a longer time to register on some pitches than others, and the rapid-fire barrage of notes in a rock song may not produce any appealing designs in the salt (probably just salt jumping up and down with the beat of the music).
Also, it may only create the designs because of the mono-frequency sound that is being produced at any given point in time, what I mean is an actual song may not produce any designs because of the use of chords and the almost undeniably innaccurate pitch frequencies that the human voice will surely expel (In the video, the designs would only take shape when the pitch was 100% accurate, something that is incredibly hard, if not impossible for the human voice to do with no vibrato).
I am not a scientist, but I have dealt with waves rather extensively. A perfect harmonic is probably needed in order to create the pattern, as an actual song mixes together many sounds that receptors like the ear can distinguish and interpret into something meaningful, but which have no meaning when looked at in a directly graphical interpretation.
That just means that the salt is a raw depiction of the frequencies composing the sound, so with a superposition of lots of frequencies, it probably would not show any symmetrical patterns (though sustained chords may have an interesting effect. I’m not enough of a music theorist to know the relation of certain types of sounds with the composite frequencies).
Pretty fun to watch, nonetheless
Agreed, I don’t think regular music would have such an interesting effect. The salt takes time to align to just a single frequency. Change the frequency too quickly or apply too many different frequencies at once and you’re likely to just have a lot of visual noise.
My guess is that it isn’t the salt that is reacting to the sound directly, but rather the surface that the salt is on that is resonating with the tone, causing areas of vibration that the salt is pushed away from and areas of no/little vibration where the salt settles. The particular geometric parterns are caused by the way the harmonics in the plate interact (intefere?) with each other in 2 dimensions.
Heh, I’m almost tempted to try to write a computer program that would simulate/predict the particular parterns given surfaces of different sizes, shapes, and materials.
Not Even An Engineer said: “Heh, I’m almost tempted to try to write a computer program that would simulate/predict the particular parterns given surfaces of different sizes, shapes, and materials.”
I wouldn’t even know where to start because I am not inclined to do that sort of thing, but you should definately give it a try and tell/show us what you come up with. That would be really interesting to see.
Hmm, I guess I didn’t really think my thought through enough. Oh, well. I guess the accidental vibrato in vocal art (such as opera, especially at soprano or higher) would really muddle things up.
However, I am tempted to wonder about sustained chords as well.
Talk about going down hill fast. Well there were a few good comments in there.
I like this vid but there’s an even better one floating around somewhere out there involving the use of a solution of cornstarch and water (oobleck?).
If you are interested in what UncleKraker mentioned above, check out my post Non-Newtonian fluids and Oobleck
If you guys are interested in what causes this effect, wiki cymatics, there is a good explanation of what causes this. If you are really good you will notice that ever new formation happens at twice the frequency of the last. If you are interested in what causes this look up how Fourier Series works. Other useful information can be found by researching a field called Signals and Systems.
Does anyone else see the similarities to subatomic orbital patterns?
Haha.. how did this turn into a debate? I love it. To all you who cry equality out there.. take a look at the world you live in. This is a scientific posting, so lets keep the imaginary out of it. It’s about keeping the topic relevant.. who gives a sh!t what you believe.. get over yourself.
[...] my other blog, I posted a video demonstrating cymatics. I thought the shapes and patterns generated by the sound waves, were pretty cool. Obviously other [...]
You people have way too much time on your hands.
I’m surprised no one has asked this but how flexible is the plate the sound is being sent onto. If it is fabric, then probably what we’re seeing the salt show is the saddle points on the fabric. The constant frequency creates standing waves in the support plate and the low points on those waves are were the salt moves (as long as the amplitude isn’t too high the salt should move to the lowest point based on gravity). As the pitch (frequency) increases the number of nodes (locations of little/no movement) increases (basic structural vibrations). The resulting is that as screech becomes screechier the size of spacing between nodes decreases and the number of nodes increases (which i think is a pretty cool demonstration of the concept). As far as low frequency sound waves, you’d probably see the same phenomenon, but you would need a much bigger sheet as the distance between nodes increases
As for the near darwin-ing of the thread, people see the world in many different ways, as long as they enjoy it and don’t mess with others, i can’t complain.
Experiments using voice to affect fine sand showed some interesting shapes. The letter “O” for example, produced a circle…..
Cool, Might be how crop circles are form.
Sound resonates patterns in crops.
I read that combinations of tones can actually
levitate objects.
It kinda make sense.
Interesting that there’s no mention yet (except here) of the impact of resonances on the formation of our universe with it’s ’strings’ of matter.
Circular or spherical things resonate intensely and for long periods (think drum heads, cymbols, gongs, stars, the sun, etc.).
So during the 1st moments of the expansion of it all, our universe probably had all kinds of resonances one could imagine even radiation of many kinds having it’s effects on matter, mass and space.
Astronomical science, looking at the overall structure of the universe, has discovered web-like super-structures that seem to have strings, nodes and voids as one would expect from the ‘organizing’ effects of resonances.
Putting things in perspective one might meditate on the idea that much of what we came from occurred in the 1st moments and hours of an event that took place billions of years ago. And so much can take place in even a million years much less a thousand million years or ‘about’ 14 Billion Years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
Fark users are inherently stupid.
I think an argument for intelegent design is perfectly reasonable after our mind recognizes patterns. Our bodies are incredibly complex biological machines that science is very far from being ble to duplicate. Who will be the first doctor frankenstein? maybe instead of lightning he should use sound waves to animate his biological machine, and then its consiousness will come from? How any one can argue against intellegent design always amazes me, and I don’t pray much and never go to church and if I do pray I never get an answer, except maybe in my dreams. which is in and of itself amazing how I find answers to where the hell I lost my wallet there when hours of searching couldn’t find it.
I noticed that the tones used in this demo all seemed to my admittedly untrained ear to be sine waves. I suppose the harmonics present in other shapes of wave (especially square waves) would probably muddle up the patterns produced.
I think the explanation of “Another Engineer” probably best explains what’s happening here. It’s not likey to replace lase light shows, however.
Leave a Comment