Live data from Hacker News

The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

thisiscolossal.com

1–10 of 40 posts

Re: The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

#4
It is interesting, but it's a standard way of demonstrating normal modes, or the applications of eigenvectors. I would think most physics and engineering undergraduates have studied this.

That's not to say you shouldn't watch it, but just to put it in perspective - this is a topic studied in the 1st/2nd year of university, not a poorly-understood topic for research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode

Re: The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

#5
Couldn't you use something like this on a small scale to implement a better random number generator for computers?

Looks like all it would take is a tiny speaker, a thin metal plate, and something that reads that metal plate like a QR code. The tone could then be randomized by a psuedo-random number generator, and even though the shapes generated are similar, they are never quite identical.

Re: The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

#7
post #4

It is interesting, but it's a standard way of demonstrating normal modes, or the applications of eigenvectors. I would think most physics and engineering undergraduates have studied this. That's not to say you shouldn't watch it, but just to put it in perspective - this is a topic studied in the 1st/2nd year of university, not a poorly-understood topic for research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode

Is this essentially the same as a standing wave, except 2-dimensional?

Re: The Visual Patterns of Audio Frequencies Seen through Vibrating Sand

#9
post #7
post #4

It is interesting, but it's a standard way of demonstrating normal modes, or the applications of eigenvectors. I would think most physics and engineering undergraduates have studied this. That's not to say you shouldn't watch it, but just to put it in perspective - this is a topic studied in the 1st/2nd year of university, not a poorly-understood topic for research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode

Is this essentially the same as a standing wave, except 2-dimensional?

Yes, the sand settles into the nodal lines of the pattern of vibration on the plate; those are the places where the plate is not moving. The same frequencies on a circular plate will produce different patterns.
Post reply on HN