5/30/2006

Incredible spooky video about resonance (and rice)


I don't know why this video is spooky, but it certainly is. A guy tips a load of rice over a panel which is vibrating at various audio frequencies. The rice arranges itself into patterns depending on the frequency. Wooooh! (Thanks Mikey). If you're freaked out by that, try this!

21 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:37 pm

    Rice? Or white sand or salt?

    Science museums have a variation on this where square, triangular and circular metal plates are mounted. Pour the white sand onto a plate and set the plate vibrating with a large bow (like a violin bow, but more industrial sized) to see how the vibrations and shape of the plate interact with the sand.

    This is the coolest tho', driving the plate with an oscillator. Thanks again, Music Thing. (As for the truly spooky rendition of "Roundabout" . . .)

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  2. Anonymous8:39 pm

    Pretty similar to the vibration modes of cymbals. SOS had a great article a while back with some holographs... here.

    I find this more disturbing: vibration of thixotropic liquids. Watch the last part of the video... creepy, ugh.

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  3. Anonymous9:20 pm

    apparently these are called chladni patterns.

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  4. Wow, that thrixotropic liquid video is incredible - just as weird as the Ferrofluid video, but much harder to understand...

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  5. Anonymous10:33 pm

    God bless Music thing... creepy rice/salt pattern videos, and a truly horrendous Roundabout version...

    surfing through the related You Tube vids I came upon this, which is almost creepier...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmGmsjvq5cM&search=showchoir%20riverside%20show%20YES%20roundabout%20choir%20hastings%20music%20fun%20dancing%20singing

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  6. Anonymous11:16 pm

    I wonder how it would look with for instance a square or sawtooth waveform. Or two notes at different musical intervals (I bet the pattern would get gradually more complex from an octave (1:2) to a fifth (3:2) and so on down to a diminished fifth (64:45))

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  7. Anonymous12:24 am

    You can set up more complex patterns on the plates by putting your finger on the edge of the plate at an integral fraction along the length (ie. 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 the length of the plate). This creates a node and forces higher order standing waves to be set up. Directly analagous to playing harmonics on the guitar.

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  8. Anonymous12:58 am

    That video was a boring shape. Check out how violins look...
    http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/patterns1.html

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  9. Anonymous3:07 am

    I did this!
    with a brass plate, sand and a violin bow.
    my brother made a video

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  10. Anonymous6:33 am

    That roundabout video was ace. That tubby girl with the blond hair at the front is hot.

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  11. that cornstarch video.... creepy! I wish the guy would not use the term 'finger like'.

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  12. Anonymous12:25 pm

    I've been doing some experiments since reading this post. Try placing a speaker on its back and placing a dish on top of it. I've discovered interesting results with mild sprinklings of sand, flour, sugar and so on. Nothing really like the cornstarch fingers, but I've made a big mess now and I feel happier.

    In theory most speakers can produce the accelerations used in the cornstarch video, but I think you'd need to glue the dish to the speaker cone to get the downward acceleration.

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  13. Anonymous2:09 pm

    Goes to show that strings and simple columns of wind are boring.

    For the mathematically inclined, google for "hear the shape of a drum".

    Victor.

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  14. Anonymous4:55 pm

    cornstarch vid reminds me of ghostbusters

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  15. Anonymous7:09 pm

    Someone stole what I was gonna say about the holograms for this type of thing - nice video though!

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  16. Anonymous2:20 am

    google Hans Jenny and Cymatics. have fun!

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  17. Anonymous9:41 pm

    That's great.

    Now how do I get my cat off the ceiling?

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  18. Anonymous6:37 am

    Is it a coincednce that crop circle form similar patterns? Maybe these are related in some way.

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  19. Anonymous1:52 am

    i got a little postcard with a CD recently with loads of those patterns on! I wondered where I had seen them before

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  20. That hurt my dog-like hearing. My ears are still ringing.

    But it was fun to watch, especially the surprising patterns at the higher frequencies, as the modes got more complex, almost chaotic.

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  21. Anonymous8:09 pm

    Yeah, that is spooky!

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