Skip to main contentSkip to footer
Why is Christian Science in our name?
Why is Christian Science in our name?
Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.
The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.
Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.
Explore values journalismAbout us
Log inLog out
Log inSubscribeGive a gift
of stories this month>Get unlimited stories
Your subscription makes our work possible.
We want to bridge divides to reach everyone.
Subscribe
Deepen your worldview
with Monitor Highlights.
Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
Select free newsletters:
');});$( document ).ready( function(){ removeMultipleListings();triggerNewsletterModal(); try { let salesforce_id = _satellite.getVar('Query String - SFMC Subscriber ID'); if ( salesforce_id ) { let pagePath = csmJs.pageData.sections; if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Books' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'books' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Politics' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'politics' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Education' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'The Culture' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'culture-learning' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Science' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'Environment' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'Technology' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'science' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'A Christian Science Perspective' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'csperspective' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Commentary' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'commentary' ); } else { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'highlights' ); } } } catch ( error ) { console.warn( error ); }});
Science Notebook
Musician Kenichi Kanazawa's 'Colour Sound' video offers a glimpse into how sound waves interact with the world around us.
About video ads
About video ads
|
YouTube
Artist Kenichi Kanazawa uses colored sand and a special table to show how sound waves interact with the world around us.
Loading...
By Jeff Ward-BaileyCorrespondent
You may have heard a Tibetan singing bowl before. It’s essentially an inverted bell that is sounded by running a mallet around the lip of the bowl, causing it to vibrate and produce several frequencies of delicate sound. But what about a “singing table"? That’s essentially what musician Kenichi Kanazawa has created, producing a steel tabletop that vibrates at particular frequencies when it’s struck with a rubber mallet.
Mr. Kanazawa is a sculptor and artist whose work focuses on making invisible forces visible. In the video “Colour Sound,” he places four small piles of sand, colored red, yellow, green, and blue, on top of his “singing table” and strokes the edge of the table with a special mallet. As the table vibrates, the piles of sand spread out, forming geometric shapes.
Kanazawa employs several different mallets, each of which causes the steel table to vibrate at a different frequency. At a very low vibrating frequency, the sand forms a simple circle; at higher frequencies it forms more complex shapes, such as stars and snowflakes.
The “singing table” art piece is an example of cymatics, the study of sound through visible vibrations. Scientists employ cymatics by coating a thin plate or membrane with liquid or a layer of particles (such as Kanazawa’s sand), then vibrating the apparatus in accordance with a certain sound wave to see how that wave behaves. The English astronomer and physicist Robert Hooke, who observed Mars and Jupiter through early telescopes and pioneered the use of microscopes in scientific work, used cymatics in 1680 to observe the wave patterns created by certain sounds.
How does it work? Every sound causes the air to vibrate at a particular frequency. Complex sounds such as music and human speech take place over a variety of frequencies, but Tibetan singing bowls, on which Kanazawa’s table is based, generally vibrate at a single fundamental frequency, with one or two harmonic overtones above it. The fundamental frequency is a sound wave with a particular wavelength; the first harmonic is a wave exactly half as long as the fundamental; the second harmonic is a wave a third as long as the fundamental; and so on.
As Kanazawa’s table vibrates at different frequencies, the sand arranges itself in a visual analogy of the sound wave being produced. Higher frequencies produce more complicated shapes, in an illustration of Chladni’s Law, named after Ernst Chladni, a German musician and physicist who studied vibration modes in flat surfaces.
You've readoffree articles.Subscribe to continue.
Help fund Monitor journalism for $11/ month
Already a subscriber? Login
Mark Sappenfield
Editor
Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.
Our work isn't possible without your support.
Subscribe
Unlimited digital access $11/month.
Already a subscriber? Login
Digital subscription includes:
- Unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
- CSMonitor.com archive.
- The Monitor Daily email.
- No advertising.
- Cancel anytime.
Subscribe
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
Mark Sappenfield, Editor
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Related stories
Science NotebookHow to put out a fire using nothing but bass
How sound waves could power glasses-free 3-D TVs
Scientists say dolphins can sense magnets. But why?
Mark Sappenfield
Editor
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
Subscribe to insightful journalism
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0520/Colour-Sound-video-shows-the-geometry-of-sound
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe
Deepen your worldview
with Monitor Highlights.
Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
Select free newsletters:
');});$( document ).ready( function(){ removeMultipleListings();triggerNewsletterModal(); try { let salesforce_id = _satellite.getVar('Query String - SFMC Subscriber ID'); if ( salesforce_id ) { let pagePath = csmJs.pageData.sections; if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Books' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'books' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Politics' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'politics' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Education' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'The Culture' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'culture-learning' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Science' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'Environment' ) > -1 || pagePath.indexOf( 'Technology' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'science' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'A Christian Science Perspective' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'csperspective' ); } else if ( pagePath.indexOf( 'Commentary' ) > -1 ) { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'commentary' ); } else { csmJs.cta.changeBanner( 'highlights' ); } } } catch ( error ) { console.warn( error ); }});
Subscription expired
Your subscription toThe Christian Science Monitor has expired.Youcan renew your subscription orcontinue to use the site without asubscription.
If you have questions about your account, pleasecontact customer serviceor call us at 1-617-450-2300.
This message will appear once per weekunless you renew orlog out.
Session expired
Your session to The ChristianScience Monitor has expired. Welogged you out.
Log in again
If you have questions about your account, pleasecontact customer serviceor call us at 1-617-450-2300.
No subscription
You don’t have a Christian Science Monitorsubscription yet.
Subscribe now
If you have questions about your account, pleasecontact customer serviceor call us at 1-617-450-2300.