Music is geometry
- Thread starter s_lone
- Start date
He'll get over himself He's a good Wiccan Kitty 
Do you know the history of that art form? I think its from India.
Do you know the history of that art form? I think its from India.
Now that was a really cool little video. What you're seeing are the natural resonant frequencies of that table top, or whatever it is, as the frequency of the sound rises. Notice how the sand muddles about at first, then settles into a fairly simple pattern, then muddles again and settles into a more complex pattern, and so on, as the pitch rises? The surface is vibrating up and down and the sand collects in the valleys of the standing waves, but the standing waves exist only at certain frequencies; at other frequencies the surface just more or less buzzes chaotically and the sand spreads out, then re-forms into another pattern when the driving sound hits the next resonant frequency.
Yeah yeah, I know, there goes that old engineer again...
Yeah yeah, I know, there goes that old engineer again...
I rather thought it was physics; all those molecules bumping into each other causing vibrations and all that stuff.
Exactly. I'm also a musician, among my many other minor talents. A stone-fingered campfire guitarist, to be precise, but I do understand music and harmony, and though I'll never be an Eric Clapton or a Mark Knopfler, I understand what they do and how difficult it is to make it look so easy. Music and mathematics are intimately and beautifully related.