THE ELEMENTS / 29
Every plate has a family of natural frequencies. Drive it near one of them and a standing wave forms. The particles trace a representative standing-wave phase, revealing the wave’s structure.
Density, stiffness and Poisson’s ratio set the plate’s bending response. The ten choices are actual chemical elements, modelled as solid, uniform metal plates. Changing element holds the drive frequency, so a different combination of modes can respond. The same mode in the same shape can look identical across elements, but resonate at a different frequency.
A linear, isotropic thin plate, simply supported on all four edges. The modal frequencies are calculated from the material properties and your chosen dimensions:
The 32 strongest driven modes are combined with their complex phase and the selected damping. Modes are drawn from a 40 × 40 basis, covering the 20–5,000 Hz range for all available settings. The off-centre excitation point controls how much each mode contributes.
The bright grains are visual tracers, not a granular-material calculation or a view of atoms. Particle view follows the nodal lines of the response projected onto its dominant mode’s phase; a small settling threshold keeps the lines populated. This is a Chladni-inspired interpretation, rather than the full cycle-averaged motion of real grains. Motion and colour are artistic interpretations of the calculated field. Particle settling is slowed and the field is normalised to remain visible; Wave field uses a slow visual phase, while sound plays the actual drive frequency. The displayed percentages are settings, not measured material damping.
Real results also depend on the sample’s crystalline structure, purity, temperature and mounting. These are representative material properties, not precision predictions. In particular, these are frequencies of macroscopic plates, not atomic spectral lines or a unique “frequency of an element”.
Material property tables from Goodfellow; plate equations described by Jim Woodhouse in Euphonics: Plate vibration.
No libraries or external assets are needed for the instrument itself. Canvas 2D is used if WebGL is unavailable. Saved images are rendered at 4,096 × 4,096 pixels.