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Video21 Aug 2014Music & performanceScience

The Santa Fe Institute puts Chladni plates in a maths-and-music concert

A short film from the Music + Math project with the Santa Fe Symphony, using the plate to tie vibrating strings to geometry.

Watch on YouTube ↗Santa Fe Institute · Santa Fe Institute · 6 min

The Santa Fe Institute is a research centre for complex systems. This 2014 video comes from its Music + Math programme with the Santa Fe Symphony, an evening of concert music and mathematics guided by physicist Cris Moore and concertmaster David Felberg. The Chladni plate is used as one exhibit in that larger story, which runs from Pythagoras and vibrating strings to Fourier analysis and the theremin.

The angle is unusual: rather than starting from the plate and asking what sound does, it starts from harmony and asks why some ratios sound consonant, then shows the plate as geometry made audible. That framing suits musicians better than the usual physics-first approach.

It is a promotional piece for a concert series, so expect polish over depth. The project page linked in the description has more.

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