A harmonograph is a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a geometric image. The drawings created typically are Lissajous curves or related drawings of greater complexity. The devices, which began to appear in the mid-19th century and peaked in popularity in the 1890s, cannot be conclusively attributed to a single person, although Hugh Blackburn, a professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow, is commonly believed to be the official inventor.[1]
A simple, so-called "lateral" harmonograph uses two pendulums to control the movement of a pen relative to a drawing surface. One pendulum moves the pen back and forth along one axis, and the other pendulum moves the drawing surface back and forth along a perpendicular axis. By varying the frequency and phase of the pendulums relative to one another, different patterns are created. Even a simple harmonograph as described can create ellipses, spirals, figure eights and other Lissajous figures.
More complex harmonographs incorporate three or more pendulums or linked pendulums together (for example, hanging one pendulum off another), or involve rotary motion, in which one or more pendulums is mounted on gimbals to allow movement in any direction.
A particular type of harmonograph, a pintograph, is based on the relative motion of two rotating disks, as illustrated in the links below. (A pintograph is not to be confused with a pantograph, which is a mechanical device used to enlarge figures.)
^Turner, Steven (February 1997). "Demonstrating Harmony: Some of the Many Devices Used To Produce Lissajous Curves Before the Oscilloscope". Rittenhouse. 11 (42): 41.
A harmonograph is a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a geometric image. The drawings created typically are Lissajous curves or related...
equipment, Lissajous curves could be generated mechanically by means of a harmonograph. Lissajous curves can also be generated using an oscilloscope (as illustrated)...
Lissajous figure. This led to the invention of other apparatus such as the harmonograph. Lissajous curve Lissajous orbit O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund...
Thing concert series in London, also performing at one of the concerts. Harmonograph was released on MVine/Red Grape Records in February 2006, a collection...
Berlin, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. He patented his harmonograph drawing device in 1967, and had a show of harmonographic art at the National...
provozu harmonografeni". Nova Prace (7–8). Adamiecki, Karol (1931). "Der Harmonograph, ein neuartiges Mittel zur schaubildlichen Darstellung von Betriebsvorgängen"...
Journal of Botany. The invention of a "miniature twin elliptic pendulum harmonograph" was also credited to him. It was, according to Archibald Williams, "a...
the photograms of Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, by pendulum-created harmonographs, and in particular by the abstract cinema of Len Lye, Norman McLaren...
Brown) (2007) Mini Album/title TBA (as George Washington Brown) (2009) Harmonograph (as The All Golden) (2018) Catsuit City EP (as part of Kenickie) (1995)...
Lights – his collaboration with Sam Carter, in 2015. The band released Harmonograph, a second album also produced by Moray in 2018. Moray produced Art Brut's...
in the theory of dynamic systems Rocker Having the official name of harmonograph, the structure known as Balancette, an analogy to the swings in parks...
Shawcross Sculpture — Installed 2023. A representation of a piano chord falling into silence, created using a machine based on a Victorian harmonograph....
instruments such as: Suardi's Geometric Pen of 1750 (Adams 1813), Pendulum Harmonographs (Goold et al., 1909) and the Geometric Lathe as used in ornamental and...
Global Information