Response to Pendulum Query - Harmonograph
08Mar2007 07:32 AM Filed in: Books
Here's
my response to a post in the Polytopia forum on yahoo
from someone interested in the mathematics of
pendulums:
In addition to entries like this one, I would also recommend (from both a physics and artistic perspective), this book:
Harmonograph - A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music which is John Martineau's beautifully illustrated book by his grandfather, Anthony Ashton, on the pendulum-based invention that creates such lovely patterns.
Years ago in my high school electronics class I used every oscillator in the classroom to an oscilloscope to observe
Lissajous patterns (and then built my own music synthesizer to go further). The illustrations in the book add the factor of damping due to exponential decay (the "e" term) and the results are exquisite... Highly recommended!
In addition to entries like this one, I would also recommend (from both a physics and artistic perspective), this book:
Harmonograph - A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music which is John Martineau's beautifully illustrated book by his grandfather, Anthony Ashton, on the pendulum-based invention that creates such lovely patterns.
Years ago in my high school electronics class I used every oscillator in the classroom to an oscilloscope to observe
Lissajous patterns (and then built my own music synthesizer to go further). The illustrations in the book add the factor of damping due to exponential decay (the "e" term) and the results are exquisite... Highly recommended!
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