Vibration
From SkepticWiki
Vibrations
A vibration is a periodic spatial displacement. The periodic movement of a physical object such as a pendulum is a vibration. The phenomenon of sound is caused by the vibration or periodic movement of air molecules. Light may be regarded as a vibration: the periodic spatial displacement of an electromagnetic field.
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[edit] Measuring Vibrations
Vibrations may be quantified by amplitude, the amount of the displacement; and period, the time between successive displacements. It is also common to refer to the frequency, which is the number of periodic movements in a given time. These are all quantifiable values. The SI system uses seconds to measure vibration period, and Hertz to measure frequency. In this system, the frequency is simply the reciprocal of the period.
When vibrations give rise to waves, as in the case of sound and light, it is also appropriate to speak of the wavelength. The wavelength is simply the speed of the wave times the vibration period.
We note that many discussions of vibration in a pseudoscientific sense avoid anything like objective quantification. This fact may be used to help separate honest scientific use of “vibration” from pseudoscientific babble. For example, the frequency of “Middle C” is 256 Hertz. The frequency of red light is 428 Terahertz. But the frequency of “divine vibration” is not given on any of the over 800 web sites that contain that phrase.
[edit] Misuse of terminology
[edit] Common Usage
A radio receiver can be tuned to recognize signals encoded in electromagnetic waves with certain specific frequencies. Using the radio receiver as a metaphor for consciousness or attention, many terms associated with vibrations have acquired extended meanings. We speak of “being on the same wavelength” to mean having a common thought, or “tuning in” to mean “giving attention”.[1]
[edit] New Age Usage
Perhaps following from the common use, New Age thought has adopted terms such technical terms as “frequency”, “vibration”, “resonance” and “attunement” as being literally related to consciousness or experience. Most people will recognize that “being on the same wavelength” does not literally imply propagating waves of spatial oscillation. The New Age usages do not recognize this subtlety; vibrations and frequencies are literally the stuff of experience.
[edit] Examples
- Everything has a frequency. Everything is a vibratory pattern. When these frequencies are requested, if a person is ready to access a higher vibration, they will go into resonance with that frequency, and their vibratory rate will raise [sic] to the appropriate rate asked for.[2]
- Quartz crystal music holds the vibration of white light which ultimately refracts into the rainbow and acts directly on our chakra's[sic] when played.[3]
[edit] Vibrations and Pseudoscience
Usage of technical terms to give an unfounded scientific or profound aura to something is a mark of pseudoscience. Pseudoscientific use of “vibration” and related terminology tends to conflate the recognized vibration of light and sound with ill-defined psychic “vibration”. Light color relates to chakras; electric and sound vibrations are related to piezoelectricity, and thus to crystals; and somehow this all relates to alpha brain waves and schumann resonance.
This is a form of equivocation, in which the general phenomenon of “vibration” is used without qualification to describe widely varied effects as though they were the same thing. In fact, light and sound have very little to do with each other, and crystals do not exhibit piezoelectric effects in the modes they are used in most pseudoscientific practices.
It may be claimed by New Age practitioners that their use of vibration-related terminology is misleading; that “vibrations” in a metaphysical sense are unrelated to the technical scientific term. But there is ample evidence to suggest that the technical meaning is intended: specific quantified frequencies may be mentioned (see: [4]), or “vibration” is identified with physical vibration such as sound or light (see: [5]).
