does cymatics defy gravity?

Cymatics can do the “impossible” and defy gravity, according to none other than great cymatics pioneer Hans Jenny.

In his groundbreaking work, “Cymatics” Hans Jenny documents his surprising experiments with the effects of cymatics vs gravity on matter – and, according to Jenny, cymatics won.

It seems cymatics (sound waves applied to a surface) can actually cause matter to defy gravity, preventing matter from falling to the ground, as it would normally. How did he discover this?

In “Cymatics,” Jenny writes that after putting matter such as sand or liquids on a plate and causing it to oscillate and form cymatics patterns simply by applying sound to the plate when in a horizontal position, he then tipped the plate sideways, and…

The matter on the plate stayed on the plate and did not fall.

He then stopped the sound source for a moment, and the matter at once began to slide downwards, falling as matter normally should when on a vertical surface; however, when he turned the sound back on, the matter proceeded to climb back up the plate, and reform perfectly into the cymatics patterns it had been holding previously.

The matter then remained clinging to the vertical surface, oscillating to the sound waves and seeming to “defy gravity” as it hung above the earth in beautiful cymatic symmetry.

“Cymatics” is an amazing book full of important and surprising discoveries about how sound shapes matter. You can get a copy of Cymatics by Hans Jenny here, and you can get a free video course to begin your own cymatics experiments here.

Here are the Top 10 Cymatics YouTube Videos, where you can see the most amazing cymatics videos online right now. This is a current list of the most popular and visually interesting cymatics videos on YouTube; I have sorted out the videos that actually show and inform about cymatics, as opposed to videos that are mostly about sacred geometry, crop circles or aliens. I will be updating this list periodically in the future, as more cymatics videos are added to YouTube. Enjoy! –Jodina

Cymatics YouTube Video #1: Resonance

editor’s note: this appears to be an excerpt from a Hans Jenny video; there is only one place to get Hans Jenny’s rare DVD’s of his cymatics experiments: go to http://www.cymaticsource.com

Cymatics YouTube Video #2: Collin’s Lab Notes: DIY Cymatics

Cymatics YouTube Video #3: Hidden World: Cymatics (click the link below to watch video)

Hidden World: Cymatics

Cymatics Youtube Video #4: DIY Cymatics

Cymatics YouTube Video #5: Cymatic Experiment

Cymatics YouTube Video #6: Human Body Cymatic Standing Wave

Cymatics YouTube Video #7: Cymatics – Voice Coil Chladni Plate Driver

Cymatics YouTube Video #8: Evan Grant: Making Sound Visible Through Cymatics

Cymatics YouTube Video #9: The Rosslyn Stave Angel – Music Cipher

Cymatics YouTube Video #10: Snowy Day

P.S. One thing that is missing from these cymatics videos is a video of a plate being played with a violin bow, so I have included one here:

Find more videos like this on School of Cymatics

Here are 10 of the top most interesting facts about cymatics, this rapidly growing but still “underground” field of study spanning art, science and medicine…

1. Cymatics turns sound into a visible pattern that is often geometric in nature.

2. Cymatics may be the “clue” that proves sound is not a wave but a bubble.

3. Cymatics is used to help the hearing impaired learn to speak clearly. In fact a deaf student at the University of Edinburgh used cymatics to create a sound-based art show at his graduation.

4. Cymatic symbols may have been imbedded inside a chapel in Scotland in order to “encode” music secretly in the carved stone cubes lining the ceiling of the chapel.

5. Cymatics actually shows the stillness within sound, when applied to metal or membranes; however when applied to water cymatics reveals visuals of the sound itself.

6. Cymatics is currently being used by reseracher John Stuart Reid to record and decode the language of dolphins, including creating a “dolphin alphabet.”

7. Cymatics plates were played with a violin bow for astonished victorian audiences by Ernst Chaldini, the “father of acoustics,” in the 1700’s. (The same technique was used to create the plates in the photo above in 2009).

8. Cymatics can make matter actually “defy gravity” – for example, if you tip a plate sideways with liquid or particles on it, the matter will fall downward; but if sound is applied to the plate, the liquid will climb back up the plate to keep it’s cymatic form in defiance of gravity.

9. Cymatics has been quietly used by violin makers for years to help build better violins: by watching the shape of particles inside the violin they can perfect their carving of the body

And last but not least…

10. Cymatics can be used to see the geometric patterns of your voice at home using table salt and a simple device made out of 3 things you can get at the hardware store. You can get free instructions for how to make this device here.

P.S. Do you know about a “cymatic fact” (or maybe just a rumor worth investigating) that wasn’t listed above? Please let me know about it in the “comments” below, and I may include it in a future article!

–Jodina

Evan Grant on TED

Recently a brief talk on Cymatics was given by Evan Grant. His presentation was based on research and documentation conducted by John Reid and Eric Larson, who have continued the investigation of cymatics begun in the 60’s by Hans Jenny.

The most exciting thing about this talk for me is that it was showcased on TED – which means that Cymatics will reach thousands more people through their already far-reaching network of listeners.

Watch the video, and also note the high level of interest in cymatics in the comments on the page.

One commentator wondered about the use of cymatics with people who cannot speak or hear in the usual way…

In fact, this is exactly what the Tonascope is used for, and has been for years – hearing impaired people look at the shapes formed on a Tonascope by voices saying letters, then are able to form sounds more precisely themselves by recreating the visual patterns.

You can learn how to build your own Tonascope (what I call a Cymatic Sounder) with 3 simple objects HERE

I recently created this video of my cymatic singing process for Bjork.

I am combining singing and cymatics by going out into the forest and singing the tones of objects such as a flower, a tree or a stone and recording it.

I then bring these ’songs’ back into the studio and sing them into a cymatic sounder to create the cymatic pattern of the object from the forest.

The sound in the video is of my voice ’singing a flower’ overlaid several times into one track.

Want to create your own cymatic sounder similar to the one in this video?

I have created some free step-by-step instructions, you can download them HERE

What is the difference between cymatics and Masaru Emoto’s work with water crystals? Or is it the same thing?

This question comes up a lot in conversations about cymatics, usually with someone asking, “Hey, cymatics…is that what that guy, um…what’s his name…you know, the water crystal guy…isn’t that what he’s doing?”

His name is Masaru Emoto, and yes, he is doing amazing things with water crystals…but is it cymatics? This video answers that question once and for all. Check it out!

This past weekend I went to the Dowsers convention in Killington, Vermont.

Jeff Volk had let me know that he would be speaking there, so I went and spent the weekend and saw his talk on Sunday morning.

He is a great speaker. What I was most impressed with was his ability to take complex topics in Cymatics, physics, mathematics, and other ‘big ideas’ and put them into quickly absorbable context.

For example he was making a point about order and chaos in the universe. He described how, many people are continually trying to become more ‘peaceful’ and to have more order in their lives, but no matter how good they get at that there are always moments of chaos that come up to disrupt everything…but how that is a good thing because chaos is what injects creativity and newness into the established order of things, without that things would become stagnant. (He put it better than I am).

It related to Hans Jenny’s cymatics film footage he was showing in that cymatics show how things are always coming from and trying to return to a state of order, but that chaos is interjected at certain points, say when a burst of high amplitude is applied in an otherwise steady sequence of ordered patterns.

 It made me realize that I often think of the universe as ‘chaos that one imposes order upon’ – but that in reality, it appears to be ‘order that one interjects chaos into’ – and that is not a bad thing, given that chaos is the great clearer, leveler and seed of creativity and new growth.

 I purchased several good books from Jeff relating to cymatics, the one that I am reading now is a small, beautiful book called “Harmonograph: A Visual Guide To the Mathematics of Music” by Anthony Ashton. A harmonograph is an instrument created during victorian times to reveal the patterns found in music…I don’t have time for a full description now, but I will talk more about it later.

Today I got a surprise call from Jeff Volk.

Jeff is well known in cymatic circles and is the publisher of Hans Jenny’s “Cymatics” as well as Alexander Lauterwasser’s “Water Sound Images.”

Jeff said he will be at the dowser’s convention at Killington, VT this weekend, and will be giving a presentation on cymatics on Sunday. I will definitely be going so that I can see his presentation, and meet him in person as I have only talked with him on the phone so far.

I am really looking forward to our meeting! Jeff is an expert on Cymatics and his site is the only place I know of where you can find  DVD copies of Hans Jenny’s original films of Cymatics.