Watch Sound Waves Shatter a Wine Glass at 187,000 Frames Per Second

Gav from The Slow Mo Guys displays the power of sound by using extreme volumes to shatter a wine glass, all captured with a high-speed camera shooting at 187,500 frames per second.

The Slow Mo Guys YouTube Channel has been producing excellent videos that show different activities captured at high frame rates for years. Most recently, Gav showed what happens when a spark plug hits a car window as well as revealing how an old 16mm motion picture camera works.

Using a Phantom TMX 7510 at 187,500 frames per second, Gav this time shows how playing a wine glass's "least favorite sound" at extreme volumes affects the fragile vessel. "That's around 7500x slower than you can see with your own face," Gav writes.

Gav notes that the resonant frequency of the glass, the sound that you can hear when lightly flicking the side of it, is the same frequency he aims at the glass extremely loudly. Resonant frequency is the natural frequency where an object or medium vibrates at its highest amplitude, according to Cadence PCB.

In this case, glass shatters when exposed to a certain frequency because the acoustic waves of sound cause the molecules to vibrate.

"When projected from a source, the vibration traverses through the air onto the physical structure of the glass," Cadence explains. "If the acoustic frequency of the sound matches the natural frequency of the glass, the latter starts to vibrate at a larger amplitude, potentially disintegrating its structure."

In this case, Gav intends to take advantage of the wine glass's resonant frequency of 505hz and hit it with that sound very closely and very loudly to force the molecules to vibrate wildly, which affects the structure of the glass, causing it to shatter.

"Do not watch this video if you have glass eardrums that resonate at 505hz," Gav jokes.

Gave creates and aims the sound at the glass by playing the chosen frequency on an iPad and through an amplifier that is connected to a two-inch compression driver with a short bit of PVC attached to it, which focuses the sound into the side of the glass.

The camera Gav uses is, as previously noted, a Phantom TMX 7510, which is a relatively new camera that was launched earlier this year. The TMX 7510 achieves 76,000 frames per second at full 1-megapixel resolution of 1280 x 800, over 300,000 frames per second at 1280 x 192 resolution, and over 770,000 frames per second at smaller resolutions — But it gets even faster. Gav's chosen speed of 187,000, therefore, slips in as a nice mix of high speed and decent resolution.

For more from Gav and The Slow Mo Guys, subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

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Watch a Spark Plug Versus a Car Window at 800,000 FPS Slow Motion

The Slow Mo Guys tested out the new Phantom TMX 7510 -- the fastest Phantom yet -- by capturing a slow-motion close-up video of a spark plug breaking a car window at an incredible 800,000 frames per second.

The high-speed Phantom TMX 7510 camera, used in the video, was launched just earlier this year by Vision Research. At just one megapixel of resolution, the camera can achieve a whopping 76,000 frames per second. But to go even further beyond, the resolution can be reduced which can push the camera to record even faster speeds and produce some incredibly smooth slow-motion shots.

The appropriately named Slow Mo Guys YouTube channel creates videos that show its viewers various experiments in slow motion, from a video that shows how a tranquilizer dart works in slow motion to a video that shows how the Apple watch ejects water, and everything in between. For the first time, Gavin, one of the creators behind the channel, had the opportunity to shoot with the fast Phantom TMX 7510 and pushed the camera to its limits while experimenting with impact on windows caused by a spark plug.

Capturing footage of a breaking window isn't an easy task. The action happens extremely quickly and not much detail is captured when shooting at the camera's full resolution. However, Gavin demonstrates the final result shot at a lower resolution which gives more flexibility with the increased frames per second.

At 82,000 frames per second, the impact of the spark plug can be seen in great detail as the window breaks from the point of contact and travels towards the edges, similar to ice cracking. The light that's pointed at the scene illuminates all the cracks as the damage travels across the window.

The Slow Mo Guys

Gavin further reduced the height of the resolution, which results in an increase in the speed and finishes the experiment by shooting at a blistering 800,000 frames per second and an exposure time for each frame of around 600 nanoseconds. The reduced resolution consequently means that the final footage is shot in an even smaller letterbox but it gives the opportunity to see the impact at an even slower speed as it moves from left to right, which for the final clip is 32,000-times slower. While resolution is not its strength at these framerates, the detail of motion makes up for it.

Although pricing information for this high-speed camera is not publicly available on the Vision Research website compounded by the lack of competition in this niche, it can be assumed that it is not an affordable piece of equipment for the everyday consumer whether it is rented or purchased. However, to watch slow-motion footage in the style that the Slow Mo Guys produce is always riveting, especially when cameras like the Phantom series can deliver smooth footage of it in such detail.

To see more of The Slow Mo Guys video experiments make sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel here.

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