Franz Melde
Franz Emil Melde was a German physicist and professor. A graduate of the University of Marburg under Christian Ludwig Gerling, he later taught there, focusing primarily on acoustics, also making contributions to fields including fluid mechanics and meteorology. He began in 1860 as Gerling's assistant at the University's Mathematical and Physical Institute, succeeding him in 1864.
Standing waves were first discovered by Melde, who coined the term "standing wave" around 1860. What is known as "Melde's experiment", "a lecture-room standby", demonstrates standing waves and their patterns on a string, is used to measure the speed of transverse wave, and to determine the effect of tension, length, and mass on the transverse waves of a string. In 1859 Melde generated parametric oscillations in a string by employing a tuning fork to periodically vary the tension at twice the resonance frequency of the monochord string.
He was a member of the Landsmannschaft fraternity. In 1885 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and in 1893 received a silver medal at the Chicago Columbian Exposition.Works
- "Ueber einige krumme Flächen, welche von Ebenen parallel einer bestimmten Ebene durchschmittsfigur einen Kegelschnitt liefern"
- "Über Erregung stehender Wellen eines fadenförmigen Körpers", Poggendorffs Annalen der Physik und Chemie, Bd. 109, 1859, S. 193-215
- Das Monochord und Farbenspectrum
- Experimentaluntersuchungen über Blasenbildung im Kreisförmig cylindrischen Röhren
- Akustik: Fundamentalerscheinungen und Gesetze Einfach Tönender Körper
- Measurement of Time
- Chladni's Lebe und Wirken
- "Die wolkenlosen Tage, beobachtet in den Jahren 1866 bis 1894 an der meteorologischen Station Marburg"
- Estimation of the Upper Limit of Audibility
