You’d be forgiven for thinking that a large tuning fork, a nail, some Blu-Tack and a guitar amp sounded more like the contents of a DIY music studio than a science lab. But they are, in fact, all the ingredients required to listen to the sound of atoms bonding.
No, really! In this video, Professor Philip Moriarty uses the tiny vibrations of a tuning fork at its resonant frequency to get atoms to cozy up with each other. The result—with a little intermediary electronics—is the glorious sound of atoms bonding. Through a guitar amp. (Insert heavy metal joke here.) [YouTube]
