The series of tuning-forks now before you have had their rates of vibration determined by the siren. One, you will remember, vibrates 256 times in a second, the length of its sonorous wave being 4 feet 4 inches. It is detached from its case, so that when struck against a pad you hardly hear it. When held over this glass jar, A B, Fig. 90, 18 inches deep, you still fail to hear the sound of the fork. Preserving the fork in its position, I pour water with the least possible noise into the jar. The column of air underneath the fork shortens, the sound augments in intensity, and when the water has reached a certain level it bursts forth with extraordinary power. A greater quantity of water causes the sound to sink, and become finally inaudible, as at first. By pouring the water carefully out, a point is reached where the reinforcement of the sound again occurs. Experimenting thus, we learn that there is one particular length of the column of air which, when the fork is placed above it, produces a maximum augmentation of the sound. This reinforcement of the sound is named resonance.
Operating in the same way with all the forks in succession, a column of air is found for each, which yields a maximum resonance. These columns become shorter as the rapidity of vibration increases. In Fig. 91 the series
Fig. 90. of jars is represented, the number of vibrations to which each resounds being placed above it.
What is the physical meaning of this very wonderful effect? To solve this question we must revive our knowledge of the relation of the motion of the fork itself to the motion of the sonorous wave produced by the fork. Supposing a prong of this fork, which executes 256 vibrations in a second, to vibrate between the points a and b, Fig. 92, in its motion from a to b the fork generates half a sonorous wave, and
Fig. 91. as the length of the whole wave emitted by this fork is 4 feet 4 inches, at the moment the prong reaches b the foremost point of the sonorous wave will be at C, 2 feet 2 inches distant from the fork. The motion of the wave, then, is vastly greater than that of the fork. In fact, the distance a b is, in this case, not more than one-twentieth of an inch, while the wave has passed over a distance of 26 inches. With forks of lower pitch the difference would be still greater.
Fig. 92.