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Re: Sodaplay: Tacoma Narrows resonator



At 12:49 PM -0800 12/7/00, William Beaty wrote:
Hmmm. "Resonance" seems to have two meanings: sympathetic vibrations,
versus vibration mode of a system. The bridge was a resonance phenomenon
in that it break into oscillation at a resonant frequency. However, since
the wind wasn't pulsing, it wasn't a sympathetic vibrations phenomenon.

Resonance has several meanings in common parlance. In physics resonance
refers to only one phenomenon, the one which is called sympathetic
vibrations in common parlance! Just because a battalion of teachers
decides that the Tacoma Bridge film is so neat that it must be shown,
and that means it must be slotted in somewhere, and resonance seems to
be a common slot chosen, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, in
physical language, resonance means something else.

Leigh