Ernst Chladni

And depending upon the type of frequency, the sand organizes into really complex mandala like geometric shapes.

One of the early pioneers of cymatics was a man named Ernst Chladni, and he used a violin bow to make metal plates vibrate, and he showed people the patterns that appeared in the sand.

And this was centuries ago, but you can imagine how shocking this would be to somebody witnessing this.

Invisible forces like sound shaping the physical world.

So real quick what that is, if you haven't listened to previous podcasts from us, when a smoke alarm horn sounds during a sooty fire, the sound vibrates, causes soot particles to clump along the horn orifice.

And then they refer to it as it's forming Chladni figures.

Chladni is spelled C-H-L-A-D-N-I.

I didn't know what that was.

I don't know what that is.

... and then makes those forms based on the pressure?

Yeah.

That's a Chladni figure.

When did meteorites happen? We'll look it up in the break.

So the first systematic scientific argument for meteorites and the extraterrestrial hypothesis was in 1794. and that was from German physicist Ernst Chladni.

He compiled historical fireball and fall reports, and he measured the incredible speeds that these things had and implied by those observations that these stones and irons must be cosmic bodies plunging through the atmosphere and heating up.

His short book was widely ridiculed.

Is it chance, or are we clockwork, I said as the opera went on, and I was filled with the sense of the folly of striving against fate? Or are we ruled by unearthly powers as these instruments are played upon, and forced to yield certain strains? That is not for you to know, he said.

Perhaps, said I, vibrations from angels' choirs draw us like the atoms of Chladni into our places.

Then an infernal chorus, said he, may cause the discord of awful crimes.

Yes, I said, a spell from hell.

We'll see you again real soon.

Ernst Chladni documented the frequency patterns created in sand as it conforms to the sound frequencies emitted from vibrating metallic plates.

He developed a formula that connected the specific frequencies with their manifest patterns and published the results in his 1787 treatise.

His work became an essential tool for violin and other musical instrument makers.