Maybe you haven’t heard of cymatics, but you should get acquainted with it. In simplest terms, it’s the science of the visual manifestation of sound vibrations. The effects can occur in many forms, and produce intricate, regular patterns. Cymatics can be observed in solids, liquids and gases, as well as non-Newtonian liquids.
First, there’s this experiment that shows what happens when a stream of water is exposed to an audio speaker playing a 24Hz sine wave.
Sound can also be visualized through the vibrations it causes. What we perceive as sound, after all, is just vibrations picked up by our ears. Here’s another video in which the frequency of sound creates a surprising visual effect.
These videos come from YouTube user Brusspup, whose other hobbies include making large-scale portraits out of push pins and who I wish was my best friend.
There’s also a more dangerous way to visualize sound–with fire. A device known as a Ruben’s Tube uses flammable gases to illustrate where the sound waves are in space. It will react to tones to form standing waves, but, as the video here from Veritasium shows, will also react to music.
“When you put on more fire, it always gets better.” Truer words have never been spoken.
Non-Newtonian liquids are liquids that pour and flow like liquids, but stiffen like a solid under stress. A cornstarch and water mixture is the most common of these. This video from Make: shows what happens when a frequency is passed through the mixture, and even shows you how to make one of these wiggly experiments yourself.
And finally, musician Nigel Stanford combines all of them in his video “Cymatics,” a single from his new album Solar Echoes. Obviously, the experiments here are shown in a cinematic, rather than a scientific way, so the video shouldn’t be taken as a scientific study, just as some pretty amazing entertainment. And don’t try that stunt with the Tesla coils at home because you will die.
