sound bubble and violin (image: John Stuart Reid)
In his article, The Physics of Sound, Reid says that sound has previously been thought to travel as a wave because of the graphical, wave-based representation we have used to capture sound visibly in the past…
“The graphical representation of sound ‘waves’ in the past is why the term ’sound waves’ is used, causing the false impression that sound travels as a wave.”
…but that cymatics allows us to realize that the true form of sound is actually spherical, or bubble-like, in nature:
“Sound in air is the transfer of periodic movements between adjacent colliding atoms or molecules. This sonic energy typically expands away from the site of the collisions as a spherical or bubble-shaped emanation.”
In this fascinating article he also discusses the nature of light, and why his studies in cymatics have led him to believe that in certain cases, sound could actually “create visible light.”
To read more about John Stuart Reid’s studies in cymatics, sound bubbles and the connection between sound and light, go here.
To start conducting your own cymatics experiments using 3 common household items, download your free video instructions here.
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Cymatics is a fascinating subject. I wrote an article for my site, Cymatics – Sacred Geometry – DNA in which I touch on the topic of sound used as a healing modality. John Stuart Reid of Cymascope.com has provided additional information.
Timberwolf
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SOUND HAS THE FORM OF A WAVE!
It is usually shown in a one dimensional representation (a string that oscillates) but in 2D it is a plane wave and in 3D a spherical wave.
That is for one single frequency in a homogeneous medium of course.
If you play music it will not be a perfect sphere but will have structure like you see in the photos.
If you play a single frequency under water and look at the form of the wave below and under the water level you will see a difference as well because the wave partially reflects at the water/air boundary and only a part will penetrate the boundary.
Please don’t say that sound isn’t a wave because it is incorrect!
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Jodina Meehan Reply:
November 19th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Thank you for replying! I based my article on research done by John Stuart Reid here. Do you have a place where I can go to check out the evidence on what you are saying about sound and waves?
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to say that sound is simply a wave would be incorrect.
it’s like saying the cube is a square,
yes it’s a square , and it’s a cube at the same time.
the point is – most people visualize notes and sounds in simply one or two dimensions.
thinking in 3D opens up wonderful possibilities.
but why stop at 3D ?
gravity affects light, light affects gravity , gravity affect time. these are other kinds of waves, or rotations, and sacred geometry and cymatics i believe hold the key to understanding torsion physics, torsion field physics, and hyper-dimensional physics.
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Sound vibrations have a specific frequency. Various energies also have specific frequencies. I’m wondering if there is any evidence of various energy frequencies operating on atomic structure in the matter that cymatics operates upon various forms. Any help will be appreciated, and can be sent to my email. The idea that a “cymatic” energy permates atomic structure and gives rise to predictable forms of standing waves, makes as much sense to me as string theory. I also believe there is a possibility that a ground energy, i.e., something well below the Planck length, may give rise to the quantum soup from which atomic elements are composed.
Thanks for any assistance.
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It’s not an issue of whether it’s a wave or a bubble or a sphere. These are simply different ways of expressing the event-phenomena. When the string of an instrument is plucked, the string vibrates. Those vibrations compress and rarefact the air all around the string, but because this happening at a scale below what we can detect with the naked eye, we have to describe it using different frameworks. If we use a one-dimensional framework, we see a frequency. If we use a two-dimensional framework projected as a ray away from the string, we get a wave. But once we begin to look at the event-phenomena in a 3-dimensional framework, we see that it is actually a kind of bubble, or spherical wave, projected out from the vibrating string, and focused by the hollows and curvature of the instrument itself.
The only evidence you need is logic.
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04/08/2013
This is a nice article.
I’d like to use this image in a magazine publication I’ll be producing very soon. Is that legally plausible?
I’d greatly appreciate your permission.
Thank you.
Paolo Masucci
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Jodina Meehan Reply:
April 13th, 2013 at 11:20 am
Hi, thanks for asking! However I don’t own the image, so I can’t grant permission. The image is from John Stuart Reid’s site, and I used it with his permission. You can find his great site and contact him here: http://cymascope.com
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