Nexus - 0211 - New Times Magazine-pages

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NEWSCIENCENEW 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 vibra- tion depends on the natural mobility of the molecules making it up. The velocity of sound through the gas also depends on the natural mobili- ty 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 wrac able. I perused a pile of testimonials after a visit to our office by the visiting lec- turer, Ian Pettitt, a certified and regis- tered Lymphologist in Australia for a few months. Obviously a lot of people are already very satisfied with their improved health, simply by the gentle ‘bouncing’ exercises provided with the Lymphaciser. We can highly recommend the Lymphaciser, and encourage readers to also obtain the book, The Golden Seven Plus One. Your health is well worth this outlay. MINI BIOGRAPHY OF CHLADNI gas. Chladni invented a musical instru- ment called the Euphonium, made of glass rods and steel bars that were sounded by being rubbed with the moistened finger, and travelled about Europe performing on this instrument and giving scientific lectures. He also had a collection of mete- orites and was one of the first scientists to insist that these fell from the heav- ens, as a number of peasants, who claimed they had seen it happen, had reported. In 1794 he wrote a book on the sub- ject and suggested the meteorites to be the debris of an exploded planet. In the very reasonable Age of reason of the late eighteenth century, scien- tists were reluctant to believe such obviously tall tales, until Biot settled matters at the tum of the century. Modern research into the phenomena elicited in Chladni figures can be pri- marily attributed to the late Dr. Hans Jenny of Switzerland. Dr. Jenny attempted to develop a system which would show Chladni fig- ures 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. x 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 mathematically in 1786. He was the first to work out the quantitative relationships governing the transmission of sound and is there- fore called the Father of Acoustics. Chladni set thin plates, covered with a layer of sand, to vibrate. The plate vibrated in a complex pattern, with some portions (nodal lines) remaining motionless. The nodal lines retained sand shaken onto them by the neigh- bouring areas that were vibrating. In this way the plates came to be covered with characteristic sand pat- terns from which much could be deduced conceming vibrations. The patterns (which are still called Chladni figures) fascinated the audi- ence when they were exhibited before a gathering of scientists 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. NEXUS¢49 hs DECEMBER-JANUARY '93