Cymatics, from Greek: κῦμα, meaning "wave", is a subset of modal vibrational
phenomena. The term was coined by Hans Jenny, a Swiss follower of the
pseudoscience known as anthroposophy. Typically the surface of a plate,
diaphragm or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum
displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste or liquid.
Different patterns emerge in the excitatory medium depending on the
geometry of the plate and the driving frequency.
The apparatus employed can be simple, such as the old Chinese singing bowl, in
which copper handles are rubbed and cause the copper bottom elements to
vibrate. Other examples include the Chladni Plate and the so-called
cymascope. History
On July 8, 1680, Robert Hooke was able to see the nodal patterns associated
with the modes of vibration of glass plates. Hooke ran a bow along the edge
of a glass plate covered with flour, and saw the nodal patterns emerge.
The German musician and physicist Ernst Chladni noticed in the eighteenth
century that the modes of vibration of a membrane or a plate can be observed by
sprinkling the vibrating surface with a fine dust. The powder moves due to the
vibration and accumulates progressively in points of the surface corresponding
to the sound vibration. The points form a pattern of lines, known as nodal lines
of the vibration mode. The normal modes of vibration, and the pattern of nodal
lines associated with each of these, are completely determined, for a surface
with homogeneous mechanical characteristics, from the geometric
shape of the surface and by the way in which the surface is constrained.
Experiments of this kind, similar to those carried out earlier by Galileo
Galilei around 1630 and by Robert Hooke in 1680, were later perfected by
Chladni, who introduced them systematically in 1787 in his book
Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges. This provided an important
contribution to the understanding of acoustic phenomena and the functioning
of musical instruments. The figures thus obtained are still designated by the
name of "Chladni figures". Work of Hans Jenny
In 1967 Hans Jenny, a follower of the anthroposophical doctrine of Rudolf
Steiner, published two volumes entitled Kymatic, in which, repeating Chladni's
experiments, he claimed the existence of a subtle power based on the normal,
symmetrical images made by sound waves. Jenny put sand, dust and fluids on a
metal plate connected to an oscillator which could produce a broad spectrum of
frequencies. The sand or other substances were organized into different
structures characterized by geometric shapes typical of the frequency of the
vibration emitted by the oscillator. According to Jenny, these structures,
reminiscent of the mandala and other forms recurring in nature, would be a
manifestation of an invisible force field of the vibrational energy that
generated it. He was particularly impressed by an observation that
imposing a vocalization in ancient Sanskrit of Om the lycopodium powder
formed a circle with a centre point, one of the ways in which Om had been
represented. In fact, for a plate of circular shape, resting in the centre,
the nodal vibration modes all have central symmetry, so the observation of
Jenny is entirely consistent with well-known mathematical properties.
From the physical-mathematical standpoint, the form of the nodal
patterns is predetermined by the shape of the body set in vibration or, in the
case of acoustic waves in a gas, the shape of the cavity in which the gas is
contained. The sound wave, therefore, does not influence at all the shape of
the vibrating body or the shape of the nodal patterns: the only thing that
changes due to the vibration is the arrangement of the sand. The image
formed by the sand, in turn, is influenced by the frequency spectrum of
the vibration only because each vibration mode is characterized by a
specific frequency: therefore, the spectrum of the signal that excites the
vibration determines which patterns are actually nodally displayed.
The physical phenomena involved in the formation of Chladni figures are best
explained by classical physics. Cymatics as pseudoscience
Researchers into similarities between philosophical and religious intuitions
and aspects of modern physics have claimed parallels between the phenomena
described by cymatics, the wave forms of quantum mechanics and the phenomena that
lead to the formation of fractal structures.
Jenny followers, in groups like the Globe Institute, have claimed that sound
waves generating particular patterns might have some sort of healing power,
and offer classes claiming to teach this supposed information.
Influences on art and music Devices for displaying nodal images have
influenced visual arts and contemporary music. Artist Björk created projections
of cymatics patterns in collaboration with Evan Grant by using bass
frequencies on tour for her album Biophilia.
Hans Jenny's book on Chladni figures influenced Alvin Lucier and helped lead
to Lucier's composition Queen of the South. Jenny's work was also followed up
by Center for Advanced Visual Studies founder György Kepes at MIT. His work in
this area included an acoustically vibrated piece of sheet metal in which
small holes had been drilled in a grid. Small flames of gas burned through these
holes and thermodynamic patterns were made visible by this setup.
In the mid 1980s, visual artist Ron Rocco, who also developed his work at
CAVS, employed mirrors mounted to tiny servo motors, driven by the audio signal
of a synthesizer and amplified by a tube amp to reflect the beam of a laser. This
created light patterns which corresponded to the audio's frequency
and amplitude. Using this beam to generate video feedback and computers to
process the feedback signal, Rocco created his "Andro-media" series of
installations. Rocco later formed a collaboration with musician David Hykes,
who practiced a form of Mongolian overtone chanting with The Harmonic
Choir, to generate cymatic images from a pool of liquid mercury, which functioned
as a liquid mirror to modulate the beam of a Helium-Neon laser from the sound
thus generated. Photographs of this work can be found in the Ars Electronica
catalog of 1987. Contemporary German photographer and
philosopher Alexander Lauterwasser has brought cymatics into the 21st century
using finely crafted crystal oscillators to resonate steel plates covered with
fine sand and to vibrate small samples of water in Petri dishes. His first
book, Water Sound Images, translated into English in 2006, features imagery
of light reflecting off the surface of water set into motion by sound sources
ranging from pure sine waves to music by Beethoven, Karlheinz Stockhausen,
electroacoustic group Kymatik and overtone singing. The resulting
photographs of standing wave patterns are striking. Lauterwasser's book
focused on creating detailed visual analogues of natural patterns ranging
from the distribution of spots on a leopard to the geometric patterns found
in plants and flowers, to the shapes of jellyfish and the intricate patterns
found on the shell of a tortoise. Composer Stuart Mitchell and his father
T.J. Mitchell claimed that Rosslyn Chapel's carvings supposedly contain
references to cymatics patterns. In 2005 they created a work called The Rosslyn
Motet realised by attempting to match various Chladni patterns to 13 geometric
symbols carved onto the faces of cubes emanating from 14 arches. Like many
claims in the cymatics community, the hypothesis that the carvings represent
Chladni patterns is not supported by scientific or historical evidence. One
of the problems is that many of the 'box' carvings are not original, having
been replaced in the 19th century following damage by erosion.
Influences in engineering Inspired by periodic and symmetrical
patterns at the air-liquid interface created by sound vibration, P. Chen and
coworkers developed a method to engineer diverse structures from microscale
materials using liquid-based templates. This liquid-based template can be
dynamically reconfigured by tuning vibration frequency and acceleration.
See also Music visualization
Visual music References
^ Jenny, Hans. Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena & Vibration. Macromedia Press.
ISBN 1-888138-07-6. ^ "Instructional Research Lab: Chladni
Plate". University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
^ a b Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni, Oxford Dictionary of Scientists, Oxford
Univ. Press, 1999, p. 101. Accessed 24 August 2015.
^ J. McLaughlin, "Good Vibrations" in American Scientist, July–August 1998.
^ Upcoming events and classes, Globe Institute, San Francisco. Accessed 24
August 2015. ^ György Kepes profile at MIT
^ "In Light of Sound study 1" ^ Lauterwasser, Alexander. Water Sound
Images. ISBN 1-888138-09-2 ^ Wilson, Chris. "The Rosslyn Code: Is a
Scottish Da Vinci responsible for the Rosslyn melodies?", Slate.com.
^ P. Chen, Z. Luo, S. Guven, S. Tasoglu, A. Weng, A. V. Ganesan, U. Demirci,
Advanced Materials 2014, 10.1002/adma.201402079.
p:onlinelibrary.wiley.com10.1002abstract External links