I recreated the Rings of Power with a vibrating square

3D standing waves next! I just have no idea how to do it. The sponsor is Jane Street. If you're interested in an internship, check them out: bit.ly/janestreet-stevemould

It makes sense that a story set in the early days of the world of Tolkien would use standing vibration waves pushing matter around as a visual motif. The entire world was sung into existence...

Even if it wasn't actually made with Chladni figures, the visual motif to look like them is such a cool and unique idea for a title sequence, and whoever brought up the idea deserves a raise.

I feel like there's an important possibility you missed here Steve, the patterns could have been generated on a stationary plate, destroyed by Chladni figure generating vibrations, and played in reverse. That's not to say the CGI possibility isn't also highly likely, but since it's basically brownian motion between the node lines and generating these patterns would be a pain in the a** by hand.

I feel like Chladni figures are a good visual example of electron fields. The way they interchange particles due to movement from an external force. Pretty neat!

The way you pinch the plate to force a node is used by guitarists (and probably some other stringed instrumentalists) as well. They will touch the string at a particular point to force a higher note out of the ringing string: often much higher, especially with electric guitars, which can more easily compensate for the lowered volume. (I guess technically they're really removing the lower-order harmonics and making the forced one the dominant frequency of the string.) These are actually often called "pinched harmonics" (although this usually refers to doing it by intentionally touching the string with your picking hand as part of the motion of picking). You can obviously hear this change in pitch as you're bowing your plate.

That Gollum impersonation was amazing!

As well as some CGI, I wonder of Rings of Power is starting with the patterns they want, and then vibrating, then running the footage in reverse.

Love the gollum bit Steve 🤣

2016 Steve made me feel like a genius when I saw the opening for Rings of Power. So glad to see you come back to it here in 2022 in light of the new intro! I don't have enough thumbs to like this video.

You are an exceptional educator Steve; I often think about how I will teach my students using your techniques.

I haven't seen it mentioned (yet), but the Stormlight Archive series from Brandon Sanderson has some interplay with Chladni figures and the way the world works

I can appreciate how much work each video takes, so I must be really exciting for you each time the video launches. Keep up the good work!

You make a scarily convincing Gollum. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I had to say something about it. I enjoyed your revisit to the world of Chladni figures. I can't wait for you to take this to the next step - three dimensions.

3D standing wave (in air) is just sound, i.e. a tone that matches the resonant frequency of the cavity that contains it.

Omg your Golem impression was incredible

This is awesome - I love seeing the "real" version of a clearly cg thing! that said, this title sequence got my brain going too. for years (probably since I saw your first video about these) I've wanted to build an arbitrary chaldni generator. here are a handful of ways you could do it, playing with boundary conditions, using multiple actuators, driving with more complex waveforms, or in the least-dynamic mode, modifying the sheet's springiness or mass locally, but regardless any of these requires a LOT of math... Since this would necessarily require a huge pile of simulation, I'm curious about your simulated patterns not lining up with the actual ones - did you glean any idea of why/how they failed to predict the nodal lines? My gut would say that the equation assumed the actuator in the center of the plate was the center of a tall antinode but based on your 1d strip example, that didn't entirely pan out?

This channel is seriously underrated. Beautiful explanation as always Steve !

That Smeagol impression killed me! You made my day, thank you! :D

Once again I am astonished about the thought and work put in this video, bravo! The first time I saw the title sequence I decided to use it as an example for my students. And a few weeks later you give us this perfect video, thank you this will make preparing the lesson so much easier. :)