Mark Rober

So all we're doing with this little cup and making a little chicken demo is there's vibrations as the friction on the string rubs against the paper towel.

It vibrates the bottom of this cup.

It's a diaphragm.

It's like a drum.

And then it's amplified through the cup, so it becomes like a little speaker.

In other words, if I take this same string and I rub it without the cup, what you would expect to hear, what I anticipate happening...

You just don't hear much.

You kind of hear it, but it doesn't have that amplification because what's happening with the bottom of this cup is as I vibrate it, it pushes all the air molecules that are up against the bottom of this cup.

It pushes them out and they bonk into other air molecules and they keep bonking until it hits your eardrum.

And it just, it registers those movements of molecules bumping in your eardrum.

And we call that sound.

And if it's a high frequency, that means the bumping happens more frequently.

So, you know, if it's a high frequency, a high pitch, that's just like the bumping happening faster.

If it's a low frequency, the bumping is happening less frequently.

We call that a low frequency.

That's exactly it.

That's right.

It concentrates the air molecules all pushing together in the same direction to eventually hit your ear.

So just simple little demos like that, where it's like, you know, I could have tried to explain that with words, but if you can viscerally, you know, get your hands on it and it's not a complicated thing, like it's not a complicated set, like those are the moments where I think you create more aha moments.

Curiosity is actually... And creativity and curiosity are like... That's a muscle that can be developed.