Talk:Tuning fork

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 * Invented in 1752 by George Friderich Handel's trumpeter John Shore,

The Oxford Companion to Music says 1711. -- Tarquin

1711 is correct. Handel left one of his tuning forks to some musical society of the other in London in 1751 (the details escape me), so it could hardly have been invented a year later. --Camembert

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the prongs of a fork for eating are certainly called "tines", but is the same true of a tuning fork?

-- Sergeant Trumpeter to the court Which court - the royal British one? /Habj 11:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Soundboard?
From the article: '''When struck, it gives out a very faint note which is barely audible unless held right up to the ear. For this reason, it is sometimes struck and then pressed down on a solid surface such as a desk which acts as a soundboard and greatly amplifies the note.'''

Soundboard links to Mixing console - I would say the use of the word soundboard at this place in the article is wrong. --Abdull 10:07, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Good point, well spotted. I've re-directed it to sounding board and added a disambiguation link at soundboard to sounding board.
 * Flapdragon 18:27, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Touching a fork handle to a soundboard, the ear bone, or any resonator will alter (lower) the pitch by up to 12 cents. This is because the handle actually vibrates up and down (directionally) as the tines vibrate horizontally. Because the handle is now impeded, is slows down the ability of the tines to vibrate normally.

I recently saw some very strange explanation for the change of pitch by the famous PHD Albert Sanderson who makes the electronic tuners. His explantion was incomplete and misleading.(UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.158.5 (talk)

I haven't looked up a reference for this, but I was taught (and this can easily be demonstrated by anyone holding a tuning fork themselves) that the fork shape serves to allow for CONSTRUCTIVE interference between the two generated waves. If you strike a fork and then rotate it, you will hear the sound get louder or softer depending on the angle relative to your ear. So the point about destructive interference is, at best, incomplete. I would consider it simply misleading. Of course when I use a fork in tuning a piano I need one hand to play and hold a note and another hand to adjust the tuning pin, so I end up holding the fork in my teeth and using my head as a resonator, which works quite well. 2606:A000:85C8:6600:C8BC:58C:DDE6:6B2A (talk) 00:20, 7 August 2016 (UTC)Paul Baxter

Density of the surrounding medium?
The speed of sound depends on the density of the surrounding medium. Therefore, the frequency should also depend on the surrounding medium as the length of the standing wave that forms on the tuning fork remains constant. For example, one would imagine that if the tuning fork were struck under water, say, for tuning an underwater guitar ;-), that its frequency would differ from that in air? Then again, the tuning fork appears to behave diffently to a classic resonant cavity as its frequency also depends on the material it's made from. Ga2re2t 10:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the frequency is maintained, what varies is the wavelength. Because it is the fork itself that defines the frequency, by the time it takes to vibrate. On a medium with an higher propagation velocity, for a given frequency of the fork, the wavelength will be smaller, and vice versa. odraciRRicardo —Preceding unsigned comment added by OdraciRRicardo (talk • contribs) 05:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see a video of this, because I don't have a tuning fork on me. Striking a glass (or doing that thing where you move a wet finger around the rim) will give a lower pitch when the glass contains water. Apparently because this increases the mass of the material that's vibrating? I would expect the same effect with a tuning fork, if so. Oconnor663 (talk) 02:38, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The formula is derived ignoring the medium. My guess is that if the medium is very dense, like water, the main effect would be to dramatically enhance the damping of the oscillations, and hence to change the sharp resonance into a wide bump. The maximum of this bump may be somewhat shifted relative to the original resonance peak, but the broadened resonance would not have a very well defined frequency anyway. A glass with water is different because it is a closed system: the water vibrates with the glass instead of taking the energy out to infinity. Edgar.bonet (talk) 17:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

BioSonic Repatterning
''Dr. John Beaulieu discovered BioSonic Repatterning while sitting in an anechoic chamber in New York University, and recognized the vibration patterns that correlated to musical notes at different octaves. He tried tuning forks at different octaves and could feel his body aligning with the tones.''

What on earth is this supposed to mean? The whole paragraph has the ring of pseudo-scientific (and commercially-motivated) mumbo-jumbo and unless it can be expressed rationally it should be deleted. Flapdragon (talk) 12:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Frequency formula not all that close
The given frequency formula provides estimates of the 1st mode quite a bit on the high side. I checked this with a lassical compuation on a cantilevered beam and using an FEA program. A much closer match for the cylindrical case is f/2*pi (to get Hz)=alpha/2*pi(sqrt(E*I/m*l^3)), where alpha is 22.66 or so for a fixed restraint. ref Marks Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, 9th ed. pg 569 & 570. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.200.53 (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I changed the formula and added references. --Edgar.bonet (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Radar gun calibration: very old source
I am suspicious about the claim that tuning forks are used in this day and age for calibrating radar guns. The cited source dates to 1976. One would think that a high-tech field would have advanced in the last 24 years. Does anybody know if this is still true in 2010? CosineKitty (talk) 02:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently they still are. Added a couple of citations of websites I found.  -- Chetvorno TALK 05:22, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * (yes, state trooper here, still have them in my glovebox for my radar unit) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.31.21.15 (talk • contribs)

Harmonics?
The frequencies of the overtones of the tuning fork are not integer multiplies of the base frequency. Is it correct then to call them "harmonics"?!178.36.173.141 (talk) 19:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * You are right: The overtones are not harmonics. So the word "(harmonics)" should be removed from the end of the second sentence in the Description section.  For a vibrating string, the overtones are harmonics.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.83.81.69 (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I wrote that sentence; I thought the word "harmonics" might be more familiar to introductory readers than "overtones". However I agree, "harmonics" is incorrect.  Removed it.  Thanks.-- Chetvorno TALK 20:02, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Accuracy of formula
Using forks of known frequency and a value of 5200 m/s for (E/density)^1/2, I get results 17-21% too high with the pitch formula in its present form. It appears that the value 1.875 might be better replaced by something around 1.70. The main problem in determining an exact value is deciding on the location of the nodal point at the base. Carl S R. carl s (talk) 21:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, the reference does not include the exact formula that is found in the article and the equation is therefore improperly sourced.

Ragg and John Walker
Ragg and John Walker seem to be the same company. (John Walker is a brand of Ragg.) They may have been separate companies earlier in their history, I suppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.117.162.44 (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Equation for the frequency of a tuning fork
Could I ask how the writer was able to derive the equation? This was because there wasn't any reference to an external source when stating the equation. Also maybe include why I/A can be rewritten as a^2/12. Thank you Jansonsport (talk) 11:56, 21 March 2021 (UTC)