Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni
Chladni was a physicist whose work focused on experimental acoustics. He invented the “Chladni figure” and various instruments. Until his death, he continued to travel and present his inventions and findings to a wide audience.
Born in Wittenberg, Saxony, to a Hungarian-Slovak family, Chladni was obliged by his father to study law and philosophy in Wittenberg and Leipzig, where he obtained his law degree in 1782. It was only after his father’s death in 1782 that Chladni turned to physics, and specifically to experimental acoustics. Clearly driven by a strong interest in music, his first discovery, the Chladni figure, visualized the vibration of rigid surfaces with a sand pattern technique using a violin bow. In 1796, he described longitudinal waves in strings and batons, and he later worked on measuring the speed of sound passing through different gases.
Chladni never obtained a professorship at the University of Wittenberg, and instead made his living from inventing two keyboard instruments: the euphonium and later the clavicylinder. Traveling through Europe, he presented his vibrating plates and performed with his instruments to large audiences and met important personalities of the day, including Lichtenberg, Olbers, Laplace, and Goethe. It was Lichtenberg who intensified Chladni’s interest in meteorology and inspired his controversial thesis regarding the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites. Chladni died aged seventy on his travels, in what was then Breslau in the Kingdom of Prussia and today is the Polish city of Wrocław.
Due to his various studies and treatises, Chladni holds an important place in the history of acoustics. His observations are still applied in modern musical instrument design and construction.
Key publications:
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges. Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1787.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Von dem Euphon, einem neuerfundenen musikalischen Instrumente.” Journal von und für Deutschland 7, no. 3 (1790): 201–202.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. Ueber den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen, und über einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen. Riga: Hartknoch, 1794.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. Die Akustik. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1802 [translated into French as: Traité d’Acoustique. Paris: Courcier, 1809].
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Nachricht von einer neuen Art von Blasinstrument, nebst einigen Bemerkungen.“ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift 28, no. 3 (1826): coll. 40-41.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Nachrichten von neueren Untersuchungen der Stimm- und Singwerkzeuge.“ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift 28, no. 18 (1826): coll. 299-301.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Ueber vortheilhafte Einrichtung eines Locals für gute Wirkung des Schalles.“ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift 28, no. 35 (1826): coll. 565-570.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Ueber das Fehlerhafte und Willkührliche in der alten griechischen Musik, und über die Vorzüge der neuern.“ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift 28, no. 41-47 (1826): coll. 645-654, 661-669, 677-683, 761-768.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. “Nachrichten von einigen theils wirklichen, theils vielleicht nur angeblichen neuen Erfindungen und Verbesserungen musikalischer Instrumente.“ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift 28, no. 43 (1826): coll. 693-696.
- Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich. Kurze Uebersicht der Schall- und Klanglehre, nebst einem Anhange die Entwickelung und Anordnung der Tonverhältnisse betreffend. Mainz: Schott’s Söhne, 1827.
Sources:
- Dostrovsky, Sigalia C."Chladni, Ernst Florenz Friedrich." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com. (July 4, 2018). [online version]
- Schimank, Hans. "Chladni, Ernst Florenz Friedrich." Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957), 205–206. [online version]
- Ullmann, Dieter. Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni. Leipzig: Teubner, 1983. [online version]
Compiled by HE | Picture: CC0 | Wikimedia
