Recovered: Cymatics

[bboyer]

Some interesting views from John Stuart Reid:

CymaGlyph Demos with John Stuart Reid - NEW (00:6:03:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3SnnE77vcI

The Shape of Sound featuring John Stuart Reid (00:8:39)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkIxpuF ... re=related

CYMATICS - New Science from Sound Research (interview with Laura Lee) (00:59:44)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... &plindex=2

[bboyer]

Cymatics
Insights into the invisible world of sound

http://www.cymatherapy.com/pdfs/CaduceusJV.pdf

Excerpt
[emphasis mine]

....

On July 8, 1680, the English experimental philosopher,
Robert Hooke, broke the visible sound barrier when he spread
flour on a small glass plate and passed a violin bow along the
edge of the plate. As he continued, he noticed that the flour,
rather than just flying off the plate, configured itself into an
oval shape, which re-oriented itself along the surface, depending
on how he bowed the plate.2

About 100 years later this phenomenon was re-discovered by
the German physicist, Ernst F.F. Chladni, known as the ‘Father
of Acoustics’, who laid the foundations for the study of the
physics of sound. Chladni (right) devoted much of his experimentation
to the phenomena of resonance. In the manner of
Hooke’s experiments, he spread fine sand on a suspended steel
plate and then bowed the edge of the plate. Intricate patterns
formed as the sand migrated away from areas of greatest vibration
and settled along the nodal lines, or the areas of minimal
vibration within the plate. He made extensive drawings of these
patterns, which came to be known as Chladni figures.3
His demonstrations to scientists and socialites in laboratories
and salons throughout Europe were so impressive that
eventually word reached Napoleon, who paid him a princely
fee for a court presentation.

In 1831 the great experimental scientist, Michael Faraday,
published a paper describing his observations of geometric
‘nodal forms’ appearing in granular solids under the effect of
vibration. Although he was fascinated by these phenomena, he
soon moved on to other areas (like electromagnetism) as he
could find no practical application for them. But it was not
only royalty and men of letters who found this so fascinating.

In 1885, an American, Margaret Watts Hughes, a singer and
‘devout Congregationalist’, began experimenting with the
‘eidophone’, a small, saxophone-like instrument with a membrane
spread tightly over the bell, upon which she spread
various powders and liquids. By singing long, sustained tones
into this device, she was able to create finely detailed images
mirroring the brachiated structure of plants and flowing water,
as well as the amazingly complex forms of flower petals.4

Jumping ahead to the 1960s, in the small town of Dornach
in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, Dr Hans Jenny constructed
a similar device, which he called a tonoscope, to transform the
human voice into visual ‘sound figures’. Jenny’s association
with the Waldorf school system, which specialized in educating
physically impaired children, led him to employ this ‘toy’
to teach deaf children to speak. Although a deaf child might
not be able to hear the difference between a properly pronounced
‘oh’ and a guttural, poorly articulated ‘uhh’, using the
tonoscope they could see the difference (Fig. 3)!

Although this very simple device was similar to the one created
by Ms Hughes over half a century earlier, Jenny did not
stop there. He went on to hook up a frequency generator and
amplifier to differently shaped, steel plates, animating
lycopodium powder (a fine, spherical powder, highly responsive
to vibration) as well as a variety of denser pastes and liquids.

This enabled him a much greater degree of control over the
parameters of the phenomena, including the ability to repeat
specific patterns at will. He, too, was able to produce a variety
of structures similar to those found in the natural world. The
resulting patterns and flow forms he observed were extensively
documented in films and books compiling over 14 years of
detailed research. Jenny coined the term ‘Cymatics’ (Kymatics
in German) from the Greek to kyma (pertaining to waves),
delving deeply into an area of scientific inquiry that had only
been superficially explored at the level of effect.6

(click to view larger image)

One might well wonder, what is so interesting about
watching a mass of powder moving around a plate? Perhaps it
depends on your ability to discern patterns, not just in the
sand, but in the interplay of sound – the animating principle
of vibration, interacting with substance – the dense matter
that gives form to these dynamic structures.

It was his analysis of these patterns and his profound
insights into their universality that set Jenny apart from previous
researchers. Truly a Renaissance man, he was a medical
doctor, a fine artist (painter) and musician, an astute observer
of Nature and a philosopher of science in the Göethean tradition.
He was also an Anthroposophist, having personally
studied with Rudolf Steiner. So, needless to say, his perspective
was vast! Jenny went so far as to say that wherever one
fixes one’s gaze, in whatever field of observation, be it astronomy,
geology, orology (the study of wave movements within
the earth) or in the life sciences, biology, cytology (cell development),
anatomy, physiology, embryology … one may
observe the principles of Cymatics at play.

Hidden within the physical formations of standing-wave
patterns, Jenny perceived and documented specific processes
manifesting through the energetic impulse (oscillations) of
sound frequencies interacting with matter. For example, he
was able to show empirically how certain frequencies within
the audible range could create fluid forms, not only in liquids,
but also in powders and even viscous pastes. What’s more, this
previously inert matter, animated by sound, could assume a
circulatory motion and would often create life-like, flowing
forms, analogous to organs of the body or to complex, living
organisms. Viewing his films, one can easily imagine how life
forms could evolve from the primordial, energetic matrix,
organized by the orderly pulsations of sound.

Effects with water
Another generative aspect of sound was brought to light in
these experiments – the creation of a turbulent field that further
‘sensitizes’ the material to other, more subtle, influences.
Experiments were done projecting sound into a variety of
gases and liquids, but perhaps the most revealing were his
experiments with water.

A little over 15 years ago, I arranged to film an exhibition
in Zurich where some of Dr Jenny’s original equipment was
reassembled to demonstrate a few of the experiments he had
done some three decades earlier. We placed a small sample of
water onto a lens with a containment ring around it to keep
the water in place and then positioned a light beneath the
lens, which projected through the water and reflected off a
mirror and onto a screen. When we set the lens vibrating with
an audible frequency the water began to reflect back and forth
on the lens, forming an oscillating dynamic of hills and valleys
– and voila! the pattern of sound-induced, standing waves
became visible as a luminous image (Figs. 6–8).

As the water is subjected to gradually increasing frequencies,
the complexity of the patterns increases with the
increasing pitch of the exciting tone. At a critical pitch the
entire structure dissolves into chaos, only to re-configure into
a higher order of complexity, as the tone continues to ascend.
[Ed. note: A similar progression can be seen in the sequence
of images from the book on our front cover (see page 16 for
full explanation). Between each of these successive sound figures
an interval of chaos transpires where no coherent forms
are evident.]

This process of chaos and re-integration is seen throughout
nature, from the valence fields of electrons within the atom
(the Periodic Table of Elements), to complex weather patterns,
to intricate, physiological processes within our bodies that
allow us to function in homeostasis within an ever-changing
sea of vibrations (our environment). It also serves as a ‘living
metaphor’ for the process of evolution occurring at all levels of
creation, from the physical to the subtlest domains of consciousness
– and its implications are equally vast.

.... (article continues)

(click to view larger image)

(click to view larger image)

(click to view larger image)
Top to bottom: Fig. 6 Light refracting through a small sample of water (about 1.5
cm in diameter) under the influence of vibration. Fig. 7 Strobe image of vibrating
water viewed from above. Fig. 8 The projected light image of the same
phenomena. ©2001 MACROmedia Publishing.

Jeff Volk is a poet, producer and publisher. In 2001 he reissued
Hans Jenny’s ground-breaking Cymatics books which
scientifically demonstrate how audible sound creates harmonic,
geometric patterns. He produced a series of videos on Cymatics
and recently re-released Dr Jenny’s original films on DVD. His
video, Of Sound Mind and Body: Music and Vibrational
Healing, won the Hartley Film Award and for the next six
years he produced the International Sound Colloquium, a
conference exploring the power of sacred sound and healing
music. In 2006 he published the English language edition of
Water Sound Images by Alexander Lauterwasser. He presents
throughout North America and is helping to promote the new
CymaScope® sound visualization instruments.

[BlueCrab]

I have been fascinated by cymatics for a while now. I love your thread. I have a quesion for you?

Is it your belief that sound is a dipolar E/M wave? Is it possible that our local z pinch, which emits at all frequencies and wavelengths, is singing us into existence in effect? Earth formations look very similar to some of the effects in the clips, don't you think? I suppose the Earth itself would have it's own "voice," and mayhaps the interference pattern (and it's interplay) with solar wave could create geolocical formations?

I'm looking forward to doing some experimentation with Cymatics in the near future. I would like to start with some recreations of Jenny's work.

Regards.

[bboyer]

I have been fascinated by cymatics for a while now. I love your thread. I have a quesion for you?

Is it your belief that sound is a dipolar E/M wave? Is it possible that our local z pinch, which emits at all frequencies and wavelengths, is singing us into existence in effect? Earth formations look very similar to some of the effects in the clips, don't you think? I suppose the Earth itself would have it's own "voice," and mayhaps the interference pattern (and it's interplay) with solar wave could create geolocical formations?

I'm looking forward to doing some experimentation with Cymatics in the near future. I would like to start with some recreations of Jenny's work.

Regards.

Hi, BlueCrab. Thank you; I love it too!

You know, I don't really have any beliefs about it. Lots of speculative ideas but most of the time I just find myself in awe. I do think that there is something fundamentally flawed with mainstream conceptions about the EM spectrum expressed only in terms of frequency and wavelength, and that there is perhaps merit to the idea of redeveloping it into something akin to the octave scale of music with its fundamentals, overtones, and harmonics. I can and do agree with everything you have stated above. I'm just not sure about your opening line, the dipolar EM wave aspect. It certainly shares similar characteristics ... something I've become aware of, sorta on the fringe so-to-speak, is that the more I study about light, I find somewhat similar aspects to sound. I don't have much clarity about it to be able to say much more specifically about it but there's something they have in common that has been bugging me; something about both of them being fundamental properties of EM as opposed to being some fundamental particle or physical entity such as the mainstream views light. Also, I think transduction is a key aspect that needs further exploration.

But I think you're spot-on with regard to the aspect of voice and the interplay of patterns ... at any and all scale. I've made reference to it before, but it was quite a profound experience making the connection of voice while watching the video and various clips of it. If you don't have the complete dvd I highly recommend getting it! Bravo on your intentions to experiment with it. Please let us know how it goes if you do.

[bboyer]

Science and Scripture
http://www.soulsofdistortion.nl/SODA_chapter11.html

Constanze Mozart as soprano singer in solfeggio K.393 (385b)
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~rb5h-ngc/e/k393.htm

Sympathetic Vibratory Physics - Universal Cosmology
http://www.svpvril.com/Cosmology/cosunityTOC.html

Borderland Science Research Foundation
http://www.borderlands.com/books.htm

Sea of Energy
http://seaofenergy.com/4436.htm

Color Music
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~colmusic/welcome.html

[BlueCrab]

Hi, BlueCrab. Thank you; I love it too!

You know, I don't really have any beliefs about it. Lots of speculative ideas but most of the time I just find myself in awe. I do think that there is something fundamentally flawed with mainstream conceptions about the EM spectrum expressed only in terms of frequency and wavelength, and that there is perhaps merit to the idea of redeveloping it into something akin to the octave scale of music with its fundamentals, overtones, and harmonics. I can and do agree with everything you have stated above. I'm just not sure about your opening line, the dipolar EM wave aspect. It certainly shares similar characteristics ... something I've become aware of, sorta on the fringe so-to-speak, is that the more I study about light, I find somewhat similar aspects to sound. I don't have much clarity about it to be able to say much more specifically about it but there's something they have in common that has been bugging me; something about both of them being fundamental properties of EM as opposed to being some fundamental particle or physical entity such as the mainstream views light. Also, I think transduction is a key aspect that needs further exploration.

But I think you're spot-on with regard to the aspect of voice and the interplay of patterns ... at any and all scale. I've made reference to it before, but it was quite a profound experience making the connection of voice while watching the video and various clips of it. If you don't have the complete dvd I highly recommend getting it! Bravo on your intentions to experiment with it. Please let us know how it goes if you do.

Hey ArcUs,

I'm not the most technical of people, but I've been digging into the whole duality issue for a while; a college intellectual hobby based mainly on internet searches. It just happen to have lead me to electrical engineering and plasma physics... Which is how I found this site a few months ago. I have to agree with you. It's not the science behind the EU that blows my mind, it's the images and graphs it creates! I often wonder if expressions like pi, phi, and e are acually infinite physical expressions that we've just given numerical representation. You put those three together and you can form any geometric shape...points, lines, sections, ellipses, vortexes, circles, crystalline structure....

At any rate. In regards to a EM dipolar wave; here are a couple of links illustrating what I mean...

http://www.tpub.com/neets/book2/1i.htm
http://www.astronomynotes.com/light/s3.htm

[bboyer]

<snip>
At any rate. In regards to a EM dipolar wave; here are a couple of links illustrating what I mean...

http://www.tpub.com/neets/book2/1i.htm
http://www.astronomynotes.com/light/s3.htm

Yep, that's what I thought you were referring to and is what I'm questioning, this standard view of the EM phenomenon we've had handed down to us. The sinusoidal representation, such as pointed out in one of the video clips by John Reid that I posted above. I think that view is fundamentally flawed and probably is grossly misrepresenting the reality. In other words those sinusoidal forms are at most slices of the integral relationship that is present. So that when they try to visualize it by slicing an integral unit into these transverse relations where one "side" is called electrical and the other orthogonal side (90&#176; rotation) is called magnetic (and in the case of light, the other postulated 90&#176; entity is the light component) ... well ... in a 3D reality how can that possibly be as stated or visualized in that way? I don't know; something strikes me as flawed. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that these sinusoidal representations are the consequence of our selective measuring instruments. Unfortunately I don't seem to have the intellect capable of expressing what it is that I intuitively know is wrong or at least very incomplete.

bonk.gif (983 Bytes) Viewed 12931 times

[webolife]

You are right on with the sinewave representation of light, Bryan. It is a good example of a math construct becoming the "reality" vs. describing it. Of course you know I don't believe that light waves anyway. However the causative and receptive instruments of light operate very much in an oscillatory manner, so that we receive signals that suggest a wave nature when it is actually the instruments that are waving. Examples include oscillating electron configurations in dyes, a vibrating incandescent filament, energy vortices on the surface of a star, plasma induced oscillations of air particles in auroral displays, electrical induction in a radio antenna, etc.

[bboyer]

You are right on with the sinewave representation of light, Bryan. It is a good example of a math construct becoming the "reality" vs. describing it. Of course you know I don't believe that light waves anyway. However the causative and receptive instruments of light operate very much in an oscillatory manner, so that we receive signals that suggest a wave nature when it is actually the instruments that are waving. Examples include oscillating electron configurations in dyes, a vibrating incandescent filament, energy vortices on the surface of a star, plasma induced oscillations of air particles in auroral displays, electrical induction in a radio antenna, etc.

Jury's still out (for me) in my personal deliberations about a media of continuity (aka &aelig;ther). I have definitely cued into the role measuring instrument resonance plays (as well as conceptual prejudice and bias), and looking for more supportive data in that ... light. I'm staying "tuned" to the possibilities.

[bboyer]

<snip> However the causative and receptive instruments of light operate very much in an oscillatory manner, so that we receive signals that suggest a wave nature when it is actually the instruments that are waving. Examples include oscillating electron configurations in dyes, a vibrating incandescent filament, energy vortices on the surface of a star, plasma induced oscillations of air particles in auroral displays, electrical induction in a radio antenna, etc.

Gordon, if you get a chance tell me what you think of this fellow's ideas:

LINK: Does Light Exist Between Events? by Jim Walker

I had posted to the "waves" thread in the EU board, but it's probably more fitting here anyway and the topic is a bit more focused here, I think. Particularly in exploring the connections between/amongst sound phenomena and EM spectrum which is pretty much the thread's founding inquiry.

bryan

[bboyer]

I have a question I've been trying to resolve, have been searching under various terms but have drawn a blank so far. Does anyone happen to know whether or not selected tuning forks that resonate with one another in air still resonate with each other in vacuum? In other words, given the relative absence of a transmitting, conductive, or transducive medium, do the forks still demonstrate vibratory resonance one to another, and if so, to the same degree or magnitude of vibration in vacuum as in air? I understand that we would not hear the auditory tones the forks produce in air, but would one fork still induce a corresponding resonant vibration in another through or across a vacuous space?

[junglelord]

I say yes if you vibrate them with EM. I imagine they would be harmonically coupled cause they are frequency coupled and a vacuum is not empty. I say no if by mechanical action alone cause we got no air.

[BlueCrab]

Hi Arc-Us,

I found a really great article to include in your discussion! Take a look and let me know what you think.

Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/200 ... usthanever

_______________________________________

I've been thinking about your earlier stated apprehension of the opposed wave representation of electricity and magnetism.... with regards to sound (mechanical waves).

It seems to me the major distinction between "em spectrum waves" and mechanical sound waves are the mediums through which they propogate.

So is it possible in your opinion that perhaps the two could be put on a musical sort of scale? Instead of a musical scale perhaps the waves would chart along the states of matter?

Sound waves cannot propogate through "empty" space. However space is not empty... It is full of waves of every sort propagating through a thin plasma, no? So sound might be characterized as wave forms that interact with the lower physical states of solid, liquid, gas?

I suppose what I'm trying to say is it possible, or do you think it is possible, that wave forms could be put on a graph in which the states of matter are on one side of that graph?

Plasma
Gas
Liquid
Solid
Amplitude/Frequency?

[junglelord]

I believe Walter Russell did that with the Spiral Periodic Table. Walter Russell is the Modern Father of the EU Theory.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/PowerPedia:Walter_Russell
I have found that basic form fleshed out at Keely.net with Walter Russell's Spiral Table.
It looks like lights are going off everywhere and embedded relationships are springing out from their hiding places to forum members in intuitive insights of truth.

[bboyer]

Hi Arc-Us,

I found a really great article to include in your discussion! Take a look and let me know what you think.

Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/200 ... usthanever

_______________________________________

Cool. Thanks!

I've been thinking about your earlier stated apprehension of the opposed wave representation of electricity and magnetism.... with regards to sound (mechanical waves).

It seems to me the major distinction between "em spectrum waves" and mechanical sound waves are the mediums through which they propogate.

Agreed. That transduction thing. Wonderful mechanism.

So is it possible in your opinion that perhaps the two could be put on a musical sort of scale? Instead of a musical scale perhaps the waves would chart along the states of matter?

Sound waves cannot propogate through "empty" space. However space is not empty... It is full of waves of every sort propagating through a thin plasma, no? So sound might be characterized as wave forms that interact with the lower physical states of solid, liquid, gas?

I suppose what I'm trying to say is it possible, or do you think it is possible, that wave forms could be put on a graph in which the states of matter are on one side of that graph?

Plasma
Gas
Liquid
Solid
Amplitude/Frequency?

Seems to me that, of course, it could be done. Not sure what it would tell us though ... what do you think it might reveal? Would the characteristic wave forms be different or much the same, e.g. sine, square, spike, etc?

What I'd like to see is more along the line of what Keely talks about (Sympathetic Vibratory Physics). Dale Pond has an SVP site (here: http://www.svpvril.com/svpweb5.html#TOP%20pg%205). The only thing that puts me off a bit, personally, about his presentation of it is the channeling thing they have going on with "Atlin" (whoever that may be) ... but to tell you the truth I haven't delved into those links so really don't know what all may be up with that. My interest in the site has purely been about the SVP material, regardless of where it may have originated from. I know much (most?) of it is related to John W. Keely's material. Again, I also am aware of the controversy surrounding him (Keely) as a quack, but nevertheless I found his vibratory material fascinating. Anyway, my viewpoint at present is that the better representation of "spectra" would probably be that of a musical scale/spectrum where all phenomena and states, including the "mechanical vibratory spectrum," would be shown to be inextricably related by their place on the scale and you could actually graphically see (and even hear) the relationships. Denominated by frequency, yes, but related by their characteristic tones and harmonics. And the octave relationship is only one way to see it, the octave I believe being common to "western" music but not to, say, the "eastern." I do think the Periodic Chart of Elements is probably related this way. Whether or not Russell's model is correct, I couldn't say as I haven't had a chance to look at his material. I think his chart may have been based on the octave, I'm not sure. And that would be one way to map the spectrum, but I'm not sure it's the best way. So much material, so little time.

Back in the late 90's I printed out and studied nearly all the Keely Sympathetic Vibratory Physics material I could find. I conceptually absorbed maybe half of it. I still think he had some excellent ideas. I'm not talking about all the esoterica about his flying machines and whatnot. I'm just referring to his material about oscillations and vibration. Same with the SVP stuff; I could care less about the people who may scoff and dismiss the entirety as crackpotted nonsense; so bloody what? The SVP material itself is what counts and whether or not any of it makes sense, again, regardless of its purported source; I think relevant parts of it is quite insightful.

For what it's worth:

LINK: The Theory of a Musical Universe

Below, from a different link:

Why Music?
or
What Does Music Have to do with Physics?

by Dale Pond, 10/96, updated 1/97

Everything! Music is a comprehensive system of organized sound which is to say vibration. This system was developed over centuries. The basis of music is arithmetic and geometry. Arithmetic (and algebra) are parametric. All quantum physics is based on frequency or the vibrations inherent in any and all elementary particles.

The causes and results of the interactions of these "particles" or wavelets is the consequence of their constituent vibrations by themselves and as they associate with each other. The connection is harmonic or isochronous waves or what is now called sympathetic vibrations. Because of these sympathetic vibrations initiating resonance at a distance there can be no truly isolated thing in the Universe. Everything is connected - it is all One.

The study of music is the study of the individual vibrations or pitches which are the notes (represented by spectral signatures) and their interrelations between each other which are the intervals and their association one to another.

The study of each field (physics and music) is applicable to the other. It is thought by this writer that the greatest area yet to explore in physics is this music connection coupled with and operative through sympathetic vibration. Because with this new (yet very old perspective) we will see the mutual connections made between all that there is by virtue of their vibratory similarities. What vibrates one will vibrate them all - sympathetically. Therefore the connecting link between all that there is is vibration and the modes of existence and interaction are defined by the same laws that govern sound and vibration which is to say - music.

Also by this greatest of all studies we will see the divinity that resides in all things whether they be of the material or energetic (spirit) realms. The common link between all that there is is the vibrations making them what they are. This divinity will be identified as the manifest inherent intelligence that makes the vibrations what they are by virtue of their dimension, number, dynamical polarity, source and associations. Dale Pond.

http://www.svpvril.com/svpweb18.html#TOP%20pg%2018