Specific flat aluminum shapes ring as pure sustained tones when handheld

Evidence

One day in 1989, in his shop outside London, Maurice Davies had been cutting flat pieces of scrap aluminum into shapes resembling bells. He held a piece up and rapped it with his knuckle. It emitted a loud, sustained pure tone. Davies had stumbled upon a two-dimensional shape that rang like a bell even if held by hand. These are now marketed as Belleplates, an inexpensive alternative to handbells. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1403

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SEED: Angle for an article: ‘the named accidental inventions of acoustics’ — Davies’ Belleplate, Koenig’s demonstrations, Thaddeus Cahill — how a single discovered shape beat engineered alternatives.
• CANDY: A scrap aluminum bell found with a knuckle tap in 1989 is a light, memorable story.

Related

• Flat two-dimensional shapes can ring like bells when held by hand (similarity 0.95)