When Sound Shapes the Dust

In 1787, German physicist Ernst Chladni scattered fine sand across a metal plate and drew a violin bow along its edge. What happened next still astonishes scientists. The random, formless grains leaped and shifted, then settled into stunning geometric patterns — spirals, stars, intricate lattices — all organized by nothing more than sound vibrating through the plate. Today we call this cymatics, the study of visible sound.…