Vibration of Glasses containing Effervescing Liquids

Abstract

IT is known that a glass containing effervescing liquid will not give a clear note when struck, and that as the effervescence subsides the tone becomes more and more clear. When the liquid is perfectly tranquil the glass will ring as usual, but on re-exciting the effervescence the musical tone again disappears. Sir John Herschel (Encyc. Met., Art. “Sound”), who states that this experiment appears to have been originally made by Chladin, quotes it as an “example of the stifling and obstruction of the pulses propagated through a medium, from the effect of its non-homogeneity;” and, in explanation of the phenomena, he says:—“We must consider what passes in the communication of vibrations through the liquid from one side of the glass to the other. The glass and contained liquid, to give a musical tone, must vibrate regularly in unison as a system; and it is clear, that if any considerable part of a system be unsusceptible of regular vibration, the whole must be so.”