13 March 2013

Falling water distorted by sound waves


A hat tip to John Farrier at Neatorama for finding this remarkable video.

4 comments:

  1. The sound has to move the hose as can be seen.

    Anyone who has ever played with a hose and running water can "duplicate" this

    I know that I have.

    Louis

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  2. Although I haven't tested it myself, I think this has something to do with the camera stroboscopic effect, similar to the bended propeller you discussed a while back. The droplets that appear frozen in midair and the waves that seem to move backwards at the end of the video wouldn't be possible without it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon-wheel_effect
    http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-rolling-shutter-effect-is-generated.html

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  3. I'm sorry I read the other comments. I found it mind-boggling.

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  4. It seems mind boggling until you understand the mechanics. I was amazed until I saw the speaker was just moving the end of the hose back and forth.

    And it's not the sound that's doing anything, it's just the mechanical motion of the speaker moving the hose. So the title is a misnomer. It's just a electro-magnet moving an element at a specified hertz, that it happens to fall in our hearing range is just a side effect of what looks good for the water motion and what a typical loudspeaker is capable of doing.

    On a side note, it is interesting to note where the speaker is struggling through it's range of motion because the water is "graphing" it. You can see when the spider is struggling to hold it on it's excursion and where the element is bottoming out.

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