Sps Demos - Chladni Plate Violin Bow

Chladni Plates: Violin Bow Version
Number of Participants: 2 - 30
Audience: Middle (ages 11-13) and up
Duration: 5-30 mins
Difficulty: Level 3
Materials Required:
The classic way to set a
• ¼” thick aluminum or steel plate (with center hole) Chladni plate into motion is
• 8” C clamps (2) by using a violin bow,
• Violin bow originally done over 300 years
ago.
• Rosin for bow
• 5/8”x5/8” square wooden dowel at least 1’ long
• 1/4” bolt with 2 nuts
• Sand or salt
Setup:
1. Gather all materials listed above, as shown in Figure 1.
2. If the metal plate is not pre-drilled, drill a clearance hole (13/64’’ or 7/32’’) in the
center of the plate. Lightly file rough edges.
Figure 1 Materials required to set up a Chladni plate with a

violin bow. Pictured is a 1/32" violin bow.
3. Attach plate to square dowel as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2
Attach the
4. Clamp down square dowel to table using C square
clamps. dowel to
the plate.
5. Sprinkle sand on plate. Use the violin bow to play It should
the vibrating plate. Note that where the plate is be on tight
bowed, that location is forced to become an enough
that the
antinode. plate is
6. Bow plate in various locations to reveal different firmly in
position.
patterns. Lightly touch the metal plate to force
nodes in other locations.
Presenter Brief:
Understand sound waves, resonance, vibrations, and normal modes.
Vocabulary:
• Longitudinal waves – waves with excitations parallel to their direction of
propagation, e.g. sound waves.
• Anti-node – point of highest amplitude and movement.
• Node – point of zero wave amplitude, or zero movement. Every point on a wave
is moving except for the node.
• Resonance – a condition where the frequency applied to the system is the same
as the system’s natural frequency.
• Restoring Force – a force that acts in the direction that restores the system to its
equilibrium position.
• Simple harmonic motion – the restoring force is proportional to the displacement.
The period is independent of the amplitude of vibration.
Physics & Explanation:

Middle (ages 11-13) and general public:
E.F.F. Chladni was a Hungarian physicist and musician who spent the late 1780s and
90’s publishing literature and lecturing physics around Europe. His signature
demonstration was sprinkling powder or sand onto a glass plate, and then setting the
plate into vibration with a violin bow, creating patterns in the sand. The patterns created
are called Chladni patterns, and the setup is named after him (in accordance with
Stigler’s law, Chladni was not the first to do the demo; Robert Hooke did 80 years
previously).
The patterns are a product of waves
moving sand on the vibrating
surface. Just like waves on a string,
the plates have nodes and anti-
nodes for a given resonance. In
places where there is no surface
motion the sand will not be disturbed
and collect, while other areas will
cause the sand to move into these
Figure 3 Wave on a string, showing nodes and anti-nodes. low motion, or nodal, lines.
Sand on the plate is agitated by the

vibrations and will tend to collect along nodal
lines, where there are no vibrations.
In this setup, you can think of the vibrating
plate like its own instrument that you play
with a violin bow. Sprinkle sand on the plate,
and play the rosined violin bow on the edge
of the plate. When a strong resonance is
established, patterns will be made. Many
frequencies are introduced at once using a
violin bow, unlike the frequency generator +
speaker method. Which patterns
(resonances) that appear will not only
depend on the geometry of the plate, but
where on the plate you play the bow. An
Figure 4 For the plate, anti-nodes are hard to distinguish, since antinode is forced wherever the violin bow is
all places on the plates are moving somewhat except the nodal placed, in the same fashion that a node is
positions.
forced on whatever fret you press your
fingers down to on a guitar string.
Figure 5 Multiple Chladni patterns created with violin bow. Blue dots mark the spot where the bow was played.
Nodal lines can be forced by placing the violin bow and/or finger in various places.
All waves transport information and energy, without actually moving material (such as
water waves in the ocean). In the case of the Chladni plate, the violin bow creates
longitudinal sound waves which vibrate the air and we hear as sound. The transverse
mechanical waves on the plate move the sand grains up and down into nodal lines.
Many forms of kinetic energy are exhibited: compression/rarefaction of air, sand motion,
and deformation of the plate.
Waves transport energy.
Optional discussion topic: what would happen if you played the Chladni plates in
space? Would you still see the patterns? Would you hear the sound?
Sound waves need a medium to travel in, so you won’t hear sound in space (contrary to
all those sci-fi space explosions). Mechanical waves also need a medium to propagate
through, regardless if they’re transverse of longitudinal. So, if an instrument such as the
Chladni plate got put in space, you wouldn’t hear the sound, but the sand particles
would still move. Since there’s no gravity, the pattern would be less pronounced; the
sand would just be accelerated off the plate rather than move over into the nodal
positions. Now if we made the particles magnetic…
The sand is a means of visualizing an already existing phenomenon. These types of
patterns, or cymatics, can be found in numerous places, including: the earth during
earthquakes, the surface of the sun, drum heads, cymbals, bells, and any other musical
instrument. Scientists use this same idea of looking at Chladni patterns for things such
as creating violins, to look at the patterns of different notes, analyzing if the symmetry is
there, indicating the desired sounding harmonics. It’s called hologram interferometry.
There is an intricate relationship between harmonic sounds and symmetry, and
these patterns can tell us useful information.
Additional Resources:
• Rossing Moore & Wheeler The Science of Sound 2002.
• Illustrations of wave motions including simple longitudinal, transverse, and water
waves https://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos/waves/wavemotion.html

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Chladni Plates: Violin Bow Version

Figure 1 Materials required to set up a Chladni plate with a

Physics & Explanation:

Sand on the plate is agitated by the

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