Ruben’s Tube – A Visual Sound Wave
May 22, 2008
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Posted by Ray Fowler
My son is taking physics this year, and we came across these neat video demonstrations of the Ruben’s Tube, also known as the Standing Wave Flame Tube. The first Rubens tube was created in 1904 by German physicist Heinrich Rubens. Rubens drilled 200 small holes at 2 centimeter intervals into a 4-meter-long tube and filled it with a flammable gas. After lighting the gas, he noted that a sound produced at one end of the tube created a standing wave the same wavelength as the sound being made.
Seeing we couldn’t do this experiment ourselves safely at home, these videos were the next best thing. Enjoy!
Here is one from Flash Forward (video length: 2:48):
And here is one from Mythbusters (video length: 1:57):
Categories: Science
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Awe….We could do this….I’m sure we could improvise…put something together…. It would be exciting! (I’m sure of that)
Gee Ray, I bet we could set up the Ruben’s tube with some Big Daddy Weave and see Praise music in a way we just didn’t think of it before. Course, it should be an outside venue and having it at night would be really cool.
Tom – If you build one of these, I want to be there when you fire it up!
Barrie – Cool idea! I always wondered what praise music looks like!