The Fundamental Field

"Since the various aspects of [cymatics] are due to vibration, we are confronted with a spectrum which reveals patterned, figurate formations at one pole and kinetic-dynamic processes at the other, the whole being generated and sustained by its essential periodicity. These aspects however, are not separate entities but are derived from the vibrational phenomenon in which they appear in their "unitariness". Even though one or the other may predominate in this or that phenomenon, we invariably find these three elements present. In other words, the series we have formulated is in reality confluent in homogeneous activity. It is not that we have configuration here and organized pattern there, but that every effect of vibration bears the signature of configuration, movement and a play of forces. We can, so to speak, melt down our spectrum and observe the action of its various categories as a continuous play in one and the same entity. If we wish to describe this single entity, we can say this: there are always figurate and patterned elements in a vibrational process and a vibrational effect, but there are also kinetic and dynamic elements; the whole is of a periodic nature and it is this periodicity which generates and sustains everything. The three fields - the periodic as the fundamental field with the two poles of figure and dynamics - invariably appear as one. They are inconceivable without each other. It is quite out of the question to take away the one or the other; nothing can be abstracted without the whole ceasing to exist."

- Hans Jenny (1904 - 1972)
Cymatics

"To be" is to Inter-Be

"If you look deeply, you will see that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. 'Interbeing' is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix 'inter-' with the verb 'to be,' we have a new verb, inter-be.

...

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

...

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when you look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here – time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. 'To be' is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is."

- Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926 - 2022)
The Heart of Understanding

Postscript. As is likely obvious to even casual visitors to my humble blog during the last week, I am currently immersed in the world of cymatics (although my wife thinks of it as more of an obsession). "Cymatics" refers to the study of sound and vibration; specifically, when the two are combined in a way that creates complex patterns in different media such as sand, water, or - what Swiss physician Hans Jenny (who coined the term) liked to use - corn starch in water. For example, if a metal plate is covered with a thin layer of flour or sand and is made to vibrate at specific frequencies, so-called standing-wave Chladni patterns appear in which the flour or sand collects along "nodes" (i.e., lines or points that undergo minimal vibration), while areas that undergo the greatest motion (i.e., the "anti nodes") are effectively left empty as the vibration pushes the flour or sand away. Chladni patterns are named after physicist Ernst Chladni who performed the first such experiments in the late 1700s.

I thank my left-brain/day-job as a physicist for introducing me to cymatics in the late 1990s when I stumbled across this paper describing what (at the time, were never before seriously studied) complex emergent patterns in vibrating layers of small granular media (e.g., cylinders filled with BBs from a toy shotgun). One line from this paper immediately grabbed my attention when I first read it and that still haunts me (both as physicist and photographer): "These excitations [called "oscillons"] have a propensity to assemble into 'molecular' and 'crystalline' structures." I remember musing, Whoa!, pump energy into an otherwise static structureless pile of 'things' and get self-organized geometric patterns?!? It was during my (absurdly slow, pre-Google days) search for related experiments that I discovered Jenny's work on cymatics, the underlying dynamics of which has a far-from-superficial overlap with the physics of oscillons.

So, having known about cymatics for about 25 years - and having even posted about it briefly in 2006 on this same blog! - why has it taken me so long to photograph it? I have no easy answer to that, just as I cannot explain why I never photographed my dad-working-as-an-art-restorer when he was still alive, which is something that - 23 years after his passing - I now profoundly regret (see Postscript 1 in this post from 2010). The creative process and the muse that guides our path are both mysterious and ultimately unknowable, which is as it should be. So, I'll leave it at that. But, whatever the reason(s) for my flurry of recent purchases of frequency generators, vertical vibration generators, lights, and more plates, goblets and petri dishes than any sane photographer has reason to own (and our kitchen cupboards have room for), I am - at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) - completely and utterly "obsessed" with cymatics. The reason is simple enough to state: cymatics is a quintessentially perfect amalgam of all three of my aesthetic and intellectual passions - physics, photography, and mysticism. 

The first two separately play obviously critical roles. The physicist-side of my brain is giddy over the vast phase space waiting to be explored: vibration frequency + medium (type + mix type) + vessel (type + diameter + depth) + ... And the photographer side is not too far behind: light (type + source(s) + directionality) + angle-of-view + f-stop + exposure time + ... But it is the idea of "cymatics as creative bridge" between seen and unseen, between energy and pattern, and between physical and spiritual that I resonate most deeply with, and is most ripe with creative possibilities. (For example, it has not escaped my attention that, in a "mystical" sort of way, the energy that the universe ineffably pumps into an otherwise structureless bag full of 'elemental things' gives rise to an emergent multidimensional dynamic cymatic-like sentient geometry called "Andy")

Since I've only started exploring the cymatics-scape universe, I have no idea what patterns await to be discovered and/or how long the search will keep my interest. But, given that I'm still looking for synesth-scapes after being mesmerized by reflective patterns in my mother-in-law's Nambe-like metal salt and pepper shakers in 2009,  cymatics may take a while 😊

For those still reading this, here is a link to a newly revised version of Hans Jenny's opus, Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomenon and Vibration. This version includes both volumes of the original work, as well as new chapters that include a biographical sketch of Hans Jenny, a non-technical primer on the physics of cymatics, and commentaries by researchers, sound therapists, designers, and artists. Indeed, I strongly recommend perusing the entire CymaticSource website, since it is a veritable storehouse of additional information, books and videos. (I am not affiliated with this website in any way. But, having recently purchased the aforementioned reprint of Jenny's revised Cymatics volume, I can personally attest to its quality - it is a stunningly beautiful book.)

Cymatics: Revealing Nature's Hidden Patterns

Cymatics (from the Greek kyma, meaning "wave" and ta kymatica, meaning "matters pertaining to waves"), is the study of wave phenomena, pioneered by Swiss medical doctor and natural scientist Hans Jenny (1904-1972). Over the course of more than ten years, Jenny conducted landmark experiments pumping energy into, and animating, otherwise inert powders and liquids into life-like, flowing forms that mimic patterns found throughout nature, art and architecture. All of these patterns are a direct physical manifestation of pure tone vibration: dynamic form induced by material vibration.

Jenny's work builds upon much earlier work by Ernst Chladni who, in 1787, published "Discoveries Concerning the Theory of Music." This work introduced the basic physics of acoustics (the science of "sound"). One of Chladni's many practical (and aesthetic) discoveries was a way to make sound waves visible . By using a violin bow, stretched perpendicularly across the edge of flat plates covered with sand, he produced the patterns and shapes that today go by the term Chladni figures.

Jenny's work also overlaps a bit with the work of mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, who was among the first to study the patterns generated by parametric sinusoidal waves called Bowditch curves, but are more often called Lissajous figures.

Apart from the incredible innate beauty of Jenny's patterns, there lies perhaps an even deeper, and deeply mysterious, "beauty" that has to do with the underlying patterns of nature. As Cathie E. Guzetta puts it so eloquently in "Music Therapy: Nursing the Music of the Soul"..."The forms of snowflakes and faces of flowers may take on their shape because they are responding to some sound in nature. Likewise, it is possible that crystals, plants, and human beings may be, in some way, music that has taken on visible form." You can read more in the article Cymatics: The Science of the Future.

More recently, work on oscillons has revealed many of the same mysterious features, including that of effective atomic and crytaline structures. The physics of "small" granular media (sand, powder, BBs from a toy shotgun,...) that sit between the microscopic (atomic) and macroscopic (and cosmic) is in its infancy. A great technical survey on oscillons: Patterns and Collective Behavior in Granular Media.