Isospectral Drums
Application ID: 119
Striking a drum excites a spectrum of vibration modes that together make up the instrument’s characteristic sound or acoustic signal. These vibration modes correspond to the eigenmodes, or eigenfunctions, of the drum’s membrane. Thus you can study this problem by solving eigenvalue problems for stretched membranes.
Two different geometric shapes are modeled, with all other parameters being equal. If you can find two differently shaped membranes that have identical eigenvalues—in other words, they are isospectral—then it’s not possible to “hear” the shape of a specific drum.
This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products:
however, additional products may be required to completely define and model it. Furthermore, this example may also be defined and modeled using components from the following product combinations:
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