Discovery Center of Idaho

OPENED ON DECEMBER 9, AND RUNNING UNTIL MAY 28, 2012:
RESONANCE RINGS

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Resonance Rings!

Here are just a few of the many brand new exhibits

What is Resonance? "That resonates with me!" is an expression meaning you're excited about something or that you understand it at your core. A similar meaning carries over to the physical world: exciting something at its natural resonant frequency results in dramatic increases in excitement. Think of small pushes of a child on a swing - you time the pushes to match the swing's resonant frequency and pretty soon the child is flying high.

Sound amplification in musical instruments, bridges collapsing under soldiers marching in unison and the creation and detection of most colors in nature all result from the phenomenon of resonance.

Another example is traveling bumpy gravel roads can be made worse if your car or bike’s shock absorbers resonate with the washboard surface. You must travel either faster or slower than this speed to avoid violent bouncing. Our new exhibition, Resonance Rings, will take you on a journey through controlling levels of resonance in a variety of objects and observing the outcome. Whether it is resonance through metal rods, tubes, orbs or pipe organs Resonance Rings will keep you involved and fascinated.

Resonant Rod Resonating Rod

What happens when tall objects begin to resonate?

Turn the crank slowly to give the spring in this exhibit the right motion at just the right time and you’ll get it to swing through a wide arc. When that happens, your input is matching the natural resonance frequency of the spring. While the crank’s action only moves the spring a fraction of an inch, proper timing of those movements result in the spring’s swing of many feet.

Resonant Orbs Resonating Orbs

Does size make a difference? Listen and find out!

In this exhibit, these spheres vibrate (or resonate) with sound waves of certain frequencies. The size, shape and material of the spheres determines what sound frequency you hear when you listen. The larger sphere resonates with lower-frequency sound waves; the smaller sphere with higher-frequency waves.

Resonant Recoil

Ever wondered why your car bounces so much on washboard roads?

At slow speeds the upper sliding assembly of this exhibit travels in unison with the motor-driven lower assembly. As things speed up the upper assembly begins to bounce. A dramatic bouncing results when the up and down frequency of the lower unit matches the frequency at which the upper assembly would naturally bounce on its springs if you dropped it. The reaction that results from vibrating something at its natural frequency is called resonance.

Resonance Tube

What happens when you "squish" sound?

The speaker is sending sound waves of a steady wavelength down the tube in this exhibit. The sliding reflector acts as a stop that reflects the sound waves back to the speaker. When the reflected waves overlap with the newly generated waves from the speaker, the two sets of waves add together to make a louder sound. There are two positions where the sound reflector bounces the wave back and it interacts with the oncoming wave to amplify the sound. These are the tube’s resonant points.

Come on out and see these all new exhibits, and many more as Resonance Rings allows you to "excite" the exhibits and watch the exciting results!