Nothing is invisible. Even noise.The thing about noise, of course, is that it's really just a shift in air density—a "traveling compression wave," as NPR explains in the above video. They're called sound waves for a reason. When you listen to music through a stereo or see a band play live, the waves of sound that smack your ear drums all trace back to a point source in a speaker (or configuration thereof) that presses outwardly on the air around it. You can't see these waves with your naked eye, but we know they're there. In fact, we can take pictures of them.That's the beauty of what's called Schlieren Flow Visualization (SFV), a photo technique developed in the mid-nineteenth century by German physicist August Toepler that visualizes these density changes. It's one of the best ways to go about seeing what so often goes unseen, and is used by audio researchers and mechanical engineers like New Mexico Tech's Michael Hargather to see far-flung sounds, like the pop of an AK-47:The crack of a firecracker:Or something far more mundane, like the clap of hands:Pretty trippy, right? If I had to hazard the guess, the next mind-fuck level in our understanding of our acoustic universe would have to be appying SFV to the soundsystem that levitates things. But either way, noise has never looked better.Also, while I'm at it, is there some sort of award for Most Literal Band Name? If there is, it has to go to French electro-pop duo Air.
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