Physical visualizations of Music with Harmonographs

BoingBoing points us to the Wooden Books website with their “Harmonographs” Book.  Harmonographs are an interesting combination of a spirograph with music that draws out interesting mathematical visualizations of the soundwaves within.

The harmonograph was a popular 19th-century parlor pastime that created art similar to a Spirograph, but with a much wider range of variables. Ashton purchased one and illustrated his book with it. He also gives a history of math and music dating back to Pythagoras, and includes schematics for building your own harmonograph.

Sounds like great fun to start off the new year.

via Harmonographs Boing Boing.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .

Science book, harmonograph, music