Sound waves(The behavior of soundboards)

Ron Nossaman RNossaman@KSCABLE.com
Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:49:33 -0600


>>     When this device is placed upon the bridge or bridge pins and a note 
>is struck one
>> can observe the needle move about.    AH HA  Motion of the bridge - the 
>cyclic
>> pressurists must be right! 

No, it just indicates that a crude inclinometer isn't the tool to prove
whether the strings are or aren't moving the bridge when they are struck by
the hammer. 



>     The Cyclic Pressurists belive that the flexing string lifts, pushes and 
>pulls upon
>the bridge as a result of a force produced  during the excursion they take 
>the standing
>waves to be.  They have been repeatedly explicit on this point, indeed, 
>posting just
>today declarations as to these operations and, in particular, contending 
>again the
>irrelevance of loading.  

I believe I said I apparently didn't understand what you meant by
"loading", and I still fail to understand why you have to preface every
post with yet another pejorative restatement of my basic argument and what
you think of it. Your posts could be made considerably shorter and more
readable by attempting to stay close to the subject. Note also, please,
that you are not discussing this with an audience, or with the "Cyclic
Pressurists", you are having this supposed discussion primarily with me at
this time.  


>Well, let us test this point.  We have seen the 
>Incidence Meter
>indicates motion when the string is struck and is vibrating BUT it indicates 
>virtually NO
>MOTION  when the string is pressed down or lifted up by a finger or tool. 
-------------------------------------------------
>     I am sure the certain opinions of the high school physicists on this 
>list will
>instruct us in that which we are, presumably, too  simple to comprehend: 
>that the device
>does not indicate motion simply because its limits of resolution are such 
>that it cannot
>detect the relevant motions that are there.  This may well be so, but in 
>taking recourse
>to such  observation, if they do,  which would be very characteristic of their
>commentary, they will indeed fail to grasp the larger point:  The meter 
>readily displays
>motion at the bridge for many unisons when the string is struck,  yet with 
>the same
>unisons one is unable to cause the meter to indicate substantial motion of 
>any kind by
>deflecting the string, much less the requisite merely similar response their 
>system
>implies.  This is a subtlety, among the many, which will probably be
cavalierly
>disregarded in the attempt to maintain the claimed  veracity of the  simple 
>one degree of
>freedom system upon which the attempt is made to develop a comprehensive 
>view of a very
>complicated, oscillating sytem such as the piano.

I dealt with this quite early on in this discussion, with a dial indicator
showing that string deflection does indeed deflect the bridge and
soundboard, and with the laser and mirror, showing that some very small but
observable rocking motion is also evident. The fact that your device
registers movement with strings and soundboard vibrating isn't surprising,
since no one but John early on claimed that bridges - etc - don't move. He
changed his mind when he learned differently. A pendulum system like this
will pick up vibrations, that is cyclic movement, in multiples of it's
fundamental resonant frequency and will oscillate. Clock makers have for
many years been aware that a number of clocks of the same design hanging on
the same wall will synchronize pendulum swing from the slight vibrations
each imparts in the wall by it's movement. The fact that your device
doesn't register "movement" when you press or pull on the strings means
that the bridge doesn't rock far enough for the relatively crude device to
register. I noted with my demonstration that the rocking motion was very
slight compared to the vertical displacement, very likely below the
resolution of your device. What did your incidence meter show in vertical
displacement with your experiment, and how could it have possibly shown it?
Stating that no movement occurs by consulting a tool that isn't capable of
indicating the movement doesn't strike me as even minimal science, much
less proof of anything. I trust you read my earlier post on the
demonstration that deflecting strings up and down does both vertically
displace and rock the bridge. Try it yourself, as I described it, and
explain to me the fallacy of my observations in that experiment.  

Ron N


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