Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni

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                                Mini Bio :

                Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (klahd'nee)

                             German Physicist

                Born: Wittenberg, Saxony, November 30, 1756

      Died: Breslau, Silesia (modern Wroclaw, Poland), April 3, 1827

    Chladni, the son  of a lawyer, found his own education directed to

    the law, much against his will.   He  received his degree from the

    University of Leipzig  in 1782, but when his father  died  Chladni

    was able to  consult  his own interests more freely, and these lay

    in the direction of science.

    Since he was  interested  in music  and  was  himself  an  amateur

    musician, he began  to  investigate sound waves matehmatically  in

    1786.

    He was the  first  to  work  out  the  quantitative  relationships

    governing the transmission of sound  and  is  therefore called the

    Father of Acoustics.

    Chladni set thin  plates,  covered  with  a  layer   of  sand,  to

    vibrating.  The plate  vibrated  in  a  complex pattern, with some

    portions (nodal lines)  remaining  motionless.   The  nodal  lines

    retained sand shaken onto them by the neighboring  areas that were

    vibrating.

    In this way the plates came to be covered with characteristic sand

    patterns from which much could be deduced concerning vibrations.

    The patterns (which  are  still called Chladni figures) fascinated

    the audience when  they  were  exhibited  before  a  gathering  of

    scintists at Paris  in  1809.   Napoleon  had  the   demonstration

    repeated for himself.

    The velocity of sound had already been measured in air by Gassendi

    and others two centuries earlier, but Chladni went a step further.

    He filled organ  pipes  with different gases and from the pitch of

    the note sounded on those pipes was able to calculate the velocity

    of sound in each of those cases.

    The free vibration of a column of  gas  determines  its pitch, and

    that vibration depends  on the natural mobility of  the  molecules

    making it up.

    The velocity of  sound through the gas also depends on the natural

    mobility of those molecules, so  that  the  velocity of sound in a

    particular gas can  be  calculated from the pitch  sounded  by  an

    organ pipe filled with gas.

    Chladni invented a  musical  instrument called the Euphonium, made

    of glass rods and steel bars that  were  sounded  by  being rubbed

    with the moistened finger, and traveled about Europe performing on

    this instrument and giving scientific lectures.

    He also had  a  collection  of meteorites and was one of the first

    scientists to insist that these fell from the heavens, as a number

    of peasants, who claimed they had seen it happen, had reported.

    In 1794 he  wrote  a  book  on  the   subject  and  suggested  the

    meteorites to be the debris of an exploded planet.

    In the very  reasonable  Age  of  reason  of  the late  eighteenth

    century, scientists were  reluctant to believe such obviously tall

    tales, until Biot settled matters at the turn of the century.

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    Modern research into the phenomena elicited in Chladni figures can

    be primarily attributed to the late Dr. Hans Jenny of Switzerland.

    Dr. Jenny attempted to develop a  system  which would show Chladni

    figures in three dimensions through the use of computer imaging.

    His best 3D efforts resulted from the use of a plastic material of

    extremely fine grain which possessed a modest attraction  to allow

    the formation and   transmutation   of  lifelike  structures  from

    excitation by acoustic waves.

    An excellent film  of  Dr.  Jenny's  work  demonstrates  the  many

    unusual phenomena which  occur  when  various  sounds  are  played

    against each other.   This  film  is  included in a video entitled

    "Cymatics" which also features the  current  work of Dr. Peter Guy

    Manners on the healing aspects of complex waveforms.

    We know that Keely developed analytical devices based  on  Chladni

    principles to assist  in his understanding of frequency phenomena.

    Photos of his equipment show many  different  types  of resonators

    ranging from tubes, to discs, to vibrating bars.

    At this time,  we  have  no positive knowledge of  the  nature  or

    construction of these devices.

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