Cornstarch on a speaker = ectoplasmic acoustics

It's a good way to ruin a perfectly fine piece of audio equipment, but the slimily tentacle-like visualization effects of cornstarch spread in a thin layer across a speaker's surface is wonderfully ectoplasmic, like watching the quavering undulations of albino fungal stalks on another world.

Cornstarch monster on speaker [Liveleak via DVICE]

[#1 posted by muteboy , February 6, 2009 8:55 AM]

These things always remind me of the descriptions of the living alien structures in 'Solaris'

[#2 posted by Wordguy , February 6, 2009 9:28 AM]

OMG it's trying to get OUT!

Very cool how it "dies" when they pull the plug.

[#3 posted by technogeek , February 6, 2009 9:41 AM]

Shear-thickening fluids are amazing things. If you haven't done so, it's worth mixing up a bowl of cornstarch solution just to play with. Grab it or push it around and it reacts like a paste; pause for a moment and it re-liquifies and flows away.

Wish I'd thought of trying a speaker; I just went after it with a couple of different kinds of motorized impellers. (And a strobe light. Mustn't forget the strobe light.)

I suspect you could drape plastic wrap over the speaker to protect it and still get most of the same behaviors. Worth trying, as is experimenting with different frequencies and waveforms.

[#4 posted by pupdog , February 6, 2009 10:04 AM]

The plastic-wrap trick was done on 'The Big Bang Theory' - highly amusing.

[#5 posted by nehpetsE , February 6, 2009 10:09 AM]

you are correct, Muteboy.

This is absolutely Solaris.

[#6 posted by Shelby Davis , February 6, 2009 10:40 AM]

I HAD been hoping to get some homework done this weekend. Thanks alot, BB.

Shoggoth shoggoth shoggoth!

[#7 posted by kaosmonkey , February 6, 2009 4:59 PM]

That's so cute! It thinks it's people!

[#8 posted by freetardzero , February 6, 2009 5:11 PM]

Ditto on the Big Bang Theory reference. BTW, I've done this in the past as well, and it works quite well to simply wrap the speaker in thin plastic- heavy-duty kitchen film, or those white kitchen garbage bags.

If you have a sonic transducer that responds to ultrasonic frequencies, you can really do some cool stuff with cornstarch. And while a regular music signal is fun to watch, you can have a lot more fun with a frequency generator- moving through the whole range of the speaker's response is a really cool thing to behold.

/geek alert

[#9 posted by haineux , February 6, 2009 5:25 PM]

Came here to say, also, that this is precisely my favorite part of the book Solaris, and I am still a little ticked at the recent remake for not picking up on this.