Die Akustik.

the father of acoustics

First edition of Chladni's second book on acoustics, 'greatly enlarged' from his first publication, Neue Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges of 1787 (Printing and the Mind of Man 233).

'The production of sound from solid bodies was not clearly understood until Chladni devised the method of sand figures to illustrate the structure of vibrations in a solid body. He spread sand over glass and copper plates and drew a violin bow over their edges, causing the plates to vibrate; the sand, agitated by the vibrations, collected over the nodal curves where no motion occurred. Chladni then classified the sand figures according to geometrical shape and noted for each the corresponding pitch, thus demonstrating that the patterns and sounds of a vibrating plate are analogous to the shapes and tones of the modes in the harmonic series of a string. The strange and beautiful "Chladni figures"... attracted much scientific attention in the early nineteenth century, inspiring fruitful investigation of the mathematics of elastic vibration' (Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science and Medicine 480).

First edition; 4to (23.5 x 19 cm); half title with engraved portrait vignette, 11 folding copperplate engravings light toning and offsetting to the contents; contemporary half vellum mottled green, pink mottled sides, title to spine in gilt on a blue ground, blue and white patterned endpapers, green silk bookmark, binding lightly rubbed, an excellent copy; 310pp.

Printing and the Mind of Man 233; Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science and Medicine 481.