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Singing pipes



Greetings everyone! I saw an advertisement a while ago about a
singing pipe. You place a pipe that has a wire mesh inside of it over a
bunsen burner. When you remove the pipe from its heat source, it lets
off a tone/moan.
Instead of paying the steep price, I made one using a wide, long
glass tube and cut up one of my wire gauzes so that it would fit inside
of the tube. After a few heatings and some minor adjustments to the
location of the gauze, it let out a loud, long tone.
Can anyone explain to me what causes this? I noticed that the
sound stops if you turn it upside down and greatly diminshes if layed
side ways. On the bottom of the tube, you feel the air rushing in and on
the top of the tube you feel a hot, vibrating air rushing out of the top.
I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with standing waves because
of the location of the wire gauze, but what causes the waves to occur?
Is the air bouncing off the sides? Is it similar to blowing over a pop
bottle or organ pipes?
Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. Also, if
you have never done this, try it. I can almost guarantee that you and
your students will get a real kick out of this.

Dwight
Ashland, OH
dsouder@juno.com