than217 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

He's a witch!!! *burns at stake*

geshel (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

The plate vibrates up and down. The places where there's no sand is where it is vibrating up and down the most; the sand all goes to where it's vibrating the least.

geshel (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

What you're seeing are some of the vibrational modes of a square plate - not exactly sound waves. The sound causes the plate to vibrate, and some frequencies correspond to resonances of the plate. At those frequencies, all the vibrations in the plate "line up" in the patterns you're seeing. At the frequencies in between, not much is happening. That's why the sand seems to "jump" to a new pattern - that's when the next resonant frequency is hit.

sharpyne5 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Crazy !!!!

Ayejaysee (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

That is so friggen cool

SkunkishMonk (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Jesus shit! That's awesome!

Bubesheimer (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

INTERFERENZ!!!

elanus81 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

The patterns do not get strictly more detailed, they just get smaller due to the shorter wavelength (as noted before the spots with salt are the places where these waves cancel each other) if the waves are shorter the distance between these spots is shorter too, so the pattern is smaller, and more of it can be seen on the same plate. I you look into the central shape they reappear like the same note on different octaves.

mechanism8 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Hmm... the paterns become more detailed as the notes go higher, I wonder why? Can any shed some light on this? I'm a little to lazy to google right now... :P

dfresh523 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

hahaaaaa rad