Chladni Plates

Four centrally mounted brass plates are driven into various resonant states with a violin bow. Sand sprinkled on the plates helps to visualize the nodes and antinodes for each state. Pressing a fingernail against the edge of the plate imposes a boundary condition (as does the location of the bow, for certain plates). There are dozens of continuity errors and other technical mistakes—sorry about that. For more details on our setup, see