Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Thunk.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, best, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


               

Hot Milk Organ

 Ideal for lullabies
  (+8, -1)
(+8, -1) 		  [vote for,
against]

The more observant of you will have noticed that if you tap a mug of cold milk with a spoon, it goes "plink", whereas a mug of hot milk goes "clunk". This is because (for reasons I have yet to discern) hot milk has a lower resonanant frequency than cold milk. I expect it's something to do with viscosity.

From experiment I believe it should be possible to use temperature to tune the milk within a range of about an octave, enough to perform a simple piece of music. The organ itself is comprised of thirteen thermostatically controlled electric heating elements that hang from a rack into thirteen mugs of milk below. The are positioned in the same manner as a standard piano keyboard and tuning is achieved by large bakelite thermostat knobs mounted above each element. The mugs themselves are played with a pair of shiny new teaspoons (supplied).

Girls can buy two and invite men home to play with their pair of hot milk organs. Although I very much doubt that they will.

—wagster, Nov 17 2005

Bottle Organ http://www.peterson.../news/bbo/index.cfm
A similar sort of concept but not as warm. [DrBob, Nov 17 2005]

Please log in.
If you're not logged in, you can see what this page looks like, but you will not be able to add anything.
Short name, e.g., Bob's Coffee
Destination URL. E.g., http://www.coffee.com/
Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)






       //Girls can buy two and invite men home to play with their pair of hot milk organs// Putting the 'ho' into 'Horlicks'.
—coprocephalous, Nov 17 2005
   

       "Milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner music's made"
—skinflaps, Nov 17 2005
   

       It's probably not so much the resonant frequency, but rather, a combination of the 'Q' factor, and the bandspread across related sidebands of warm milk. The variation of temperature probably approximates the equivalent of an increase of a band-pass filter's Q, and a slight decrease of the driver's frequency (to combine terminology of subtractive synthesis and physical modelling synthesis) due to the receptacle warming up. Yamaha might be interested in reviving their line of virtual acoustic synths (such as the VL70-m I have here but rarely use, so must sell one day) to change the acoustic models from blown-wind/pipe instrument, and plucked-string models, to warm-milk-in-mug/teaspoon model.
—Ian Tindale, Nov 17 2005
   

       Couldn't resist could ya Ian?
—skinflaps, Nov 17 2005
   

       Nope. Also, you could rename the 'vibrato' lever to 'jiggle'.
—Ian Tindale, Nov 17 2005
   

       I think you are all just being titillating
—po, Nov 17 2005
   


 

back: main index
business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle