Chladni Patterns

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Chladni patterns. When a metal plate vibrates, sand collects on the still lines. Pick a pattern below — or tap Live to make your own with your voice. Learn more

Each pattern below is a different way the plate can vibrate. Sand collects on the still lines. Tap one to switch. Try Live to make your own with your voice.

Simulation Mode

Pick a Pattern

Advanced

Tweak the chosen pattern's geometry. The buttons above pick (m, n); the sliders bend the same shape.

Frequency 1.0x

Multiplies the mode numbers — higher = more, finer bands.

Amplitude 1.0

Strength of the wave field — bigger = harder push toward the dark lines.

Mic off

Advanced

Diagnostics + tuning for nerds. The top-bar readout is the user-facing summary; everything here is the raw mechanism behind it.

Level (raw RMS) —

Unprocessed mic loudness. The top-bar level is auto-gained for legibility; this is what's actually coming in.

Speaker Position

Tap on the canvas to move the excitation point. (Currently only shifts the audio injection origin in deeper simulations — the analytical eigenmode pattern is symmetric.)

Center (0.50, 0.50)

Tuning — how your voice maps to patterns

Two knobs that change the relationship between the pitch the mic hears and what shows on the plate.

Plate Constant 50

What it does: picks which pattern your pitch lands on. Real plates have a constant baked into the metal — material, thickness, size. Here it's a slider. Lower = a soft hum picks complex patterns. Higher = even a high whistle picks simple ones.

Amplitude 1.0

What it does: how hard the wave field pushes particles toward nodal lines. Bigger = sharper, more committed pattern. Smaller = softer, more diffuse.

Pitch accuracy — am I "in tune" with this pattern?

Each pattern has a natural frequency where a real Chladni plate would actually resonate. The bar shows how close your pitch is to that frequency for the current pattern. "Locked" = you're hitting the exact resonance; "Off pitch" = your pitch maps to this pattern but isn't its natural frequency.

Off pitch

Your Freq -- Hz

Target Mode (--,--)

Target Freq -- Hz

About

Chladni patterns form when a vibrating plate causes particles to collect along nodal lines - regions where the plate doesn't move. Discovered by Ernst Chladni in 1787, these patterns reveal the physics of standing waves.

Mode (3,2)

Particles 50000