Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

Chladni Plates

Accumulation of sand at nodes of vibrating plate reveals resonance patterns.

What It Shows

A Chladni plate consists of a flat sheet of metal, usually circular or square, mounted on a central stalk to a sturdy base. When the plate is oscillating in a particular mode of vibration, the nodes and antinodes that are set up form complex but symmetrical patterns over its surface. The positions of these nodes and antinodes can be seen by sprinkling sand upon the plates; the sand will vibrate away from the antinodes and gather at the nodes.

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What it shows:

The following is a sequence of experiments that can accompany a standard lecture on electromagnetic waves. The entire sequence is quite long and you may not want to do it all in one lecture.

1) The voltage variation along the length of a dipole transmitting antenna can be made evident. The intensity variation of a fluorescent light bulb, held near the antenna, shows the voltage to be maximum at the ends and minimum in the middle of the dipole.

(2) The radio waves that radiate from the transmitting antenna are detected by...

What it shows:

The Relativity Train is a realization of the famous Einstein gedanken experiments involving traveling trains carrying clocks and meter sticks. The demonstration is used to show how the preservation of the postulated constancy of physical laws and the speed of light in all inertial frames requires length contraction and time dilation in the train frame relative to the lab frame of reference. The demonstration is, of course, not a real experiment but rather a visual means of showing (without using any equations) how length contraction and time dilation are...

Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

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