The Power of the Slinkies

Slinky

Slinky is the commercial name for this toy, made up of a long helical spring, which was popular (who knows) perhaps 30-40 years ago (it was invented in the 1940s; I have at least 4 or 5 of them, but I don't remember when I bought them).

See also wikipedia.

A sound wave in a long wire travels back and forth and produces an echo effect. This fact was well known to the old sound engineers and the so called spring reverberator was largely used in the analogical era.

In this video micolich shows the power of long springs. When touched, the sound travels repeatedly along the whole length of the spring producing a stream of little echoes with decreasing amplitude. But the sound speed is high, so the time distance between echoes is a question of milliseconds. As result we can’t perceive the single echo, but a decreasing halo that extend the sound: this is the reverberation.

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