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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

the patterns created by this apparatus are not as dependent on the character of the wave as the shape of the slab of metal.

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Thank you, I appreciate your feedback. It was an unfinished idea and just a hint at the potential behind the creator's own idea. I think the problem you mentioned can be solved by putting the sand into a transparent hood ontop of a very thin plate made which all is made out of this meta-material: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmEE-2aJkeo

That meta-material allows sound to pass through, which is perfect to reduce a loss of sensitivity in the visualization. Also you could use something other than sand, that reacts much more intense to any kind of resonance frequency. My idea would be to create lots of fullerenes, each containing elements with different resonance frequencies, mix them up and put them into a closed cage made out of that meta-material. Should be amazing to watch the material form shapes out of your brain waves.

(stumbled over this article, while researching for the material http://www.technologyreview.com/view/421285/mass-can-be-crea... maybe of interest)

I think you don't understand the physics of the process in the plate video. The material is irrelevant. If you're inducing vibrational nodes in an object, where those nodes occur will are a function of 1) the fundamental frequency of the pure tone, and 2) the shape of the object. If you supply it with a sound that is more than one frequency, it is highly unlikely you will see anything, and even if you do, the overall shape of the pattern has a larger "shape of the object" character than "shape of the frequency" character.

If the plate is a circle, the vibrational nodes that you will see will 100% be circular and "totally boring". If, however, the shape is a rounded rectangle, you might see "something interesting", but that's cheating, because the the interesting shapes have to do with the fact that your plate is a rounded rectangle and not to do with the actual components of the sound that you're putting in.

Why do you imply that I don't understand it? I've done these experiments myself as a child and know enough about the resonance frequency and the physics behind it. I just suggested that my initial idea can be improved and how, which doesn't use a metal plate, but a sound passing meta-material, which would result in more ordered shapes being formed, because the fullerenes include elements with different resonance frequencies and would probably self-organize into a structure. It would probably be boring, because it would self-organize like sediments of different density in water.

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