When a plate vibrates, sand flees the motion and settles along the lines of silence. Adjust the vibration modes and watch Chladni figures come to life in real time.
The sound of the mode
432 Hz
Fundamentals
Solfeggio
The modes
Mode M counts the half-waves of the vibration across the width; mode N, across the height. Each pair (M, N) is a resonance mode of the plate, and each one draws its own lines of silence, where the vibration cancels out.
The combination
0° is the classic combination and 90°, the symmetric one; each angle between them is another real superposition of the same modes, with its own figure and the same tone. At 180° the cycle completes and the figure returns to the classic one.
The tuning
A pure tone in whole hertz. Each anchor takes the plate to the mode whose resonance is closest to the target and tunes it to sound exact: figure and frequency always correspond. The fundamentals are musical tunings (C = 128/256 Hz, powers of two; A = 432 Hz from the harmonic tradition); the Solfeggio come from the sacred scale (3-6-9 mathematics). Turning the combination changes the figure, not the tone.
The figures here are the ideal modes of a perfect square plate, computed from the mathematics. On a real plate, each frequency's pattern also depends on the material, the plate's thickness and shape, where and how it is driven, the size of the grains and the damping; that is why the same frequency can draw different figures on different setups. What you see here is the mathematical skeleton of resonance, not a photograph of an experiment.
On the channel
The Intimate Relationship Between Geometry and Music
This video is in Portuguese. To follow along, open it on YouTube and turn on the automatic subtitles in English in the player settings; captions are not available inside the embed here.
Three layers
Each figure is the set of points where vibration cancels out: the nodal lines of the combinations cos(Mπx)·cos(Nπy) ∓ cos(Nπx)·cos(Mπy). The M and N controls choose how many half-waves fit across the plate in each direction, and the tone you hear follows the mode's eigenvalue: the frequency grows with √(M² + N²).
In 1787, Ernst Chladni sprinkled sand over metal plates and made them vibrate with a violin bow. Sand leaps away from the moving regions and rests on the quiet lines; the same principle shapes a drumhead and the ripples on a lake.
Watching sound create form is watching the invisible become visible. Ancient traditions describe the world being born from a primordial vibration; cymatics gives that intuition a concrete, measurable image.
Questions
Cymatics is the study of the figures that vibration draws in physical media such as sand, water or salt. The name comes from the Greek kyma, wave, and was coined by Hans Jenny in the 1960s building on Ernst Chladni's experiments.
They are the patterns that appear when a plate vibrates in a resonance mode: sand gathers along the nodal lines, where the plate stays still. Each pair of modes m and n produces a different figure.
It generates a pure sine tone at the exact frequency of the displayed mode: what you hear and what you see are the same mathematics. It does not listen to the environment yet; a microphone version, responding to your voice in real time, is part of the portal's plans.
Not necessarily. This simulator shows the ideal modes of a perfect square plate, but on a real plate each frequency's pattern also depends on the material, the plate's thickness and shape, the point and manner of excitation, the size of the grains and the damping. All of these factors modulate the resonance, so the same frequency can reveal different figures on different setups. The figures here are the exact mathematical model, not a photograph of a specific experiment.
Yes. The PNG download is free for personal and educational use; just keep the reference to the Geometria Sagrada portal when you share.
Chladni figures show that form and frequency walk together: symmetric, mandala-like patterns emerge from simple physical laws. It is one of the most direct examples of geometry organizing the sensible world.
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