Franz Emil Melde (March 11, 1832 in Großenlüder near Fulda – March 17, 1901 in Marburg) 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,[1] 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.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Standing_wave.gif/220px-Standing_wave.gif)
Standing waves were first discovered by Melde, who coined the term "standing wave" (stehende Welle) around 1860.[2][3][4][5] What is known as "Melde's experiment", "a lecture-room standby",[6] 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.[7][8]
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" (thesis, 1859)
- "Über Erregung stehender Wellen eines fadenförmigen Körpers", Poggendorffs Annalen der Physik und Chemie (Serie 2), Bd. 109, 1859, S. 193-215 ["The Production of Standing Waves in Strings"]
- Das Monochord und Farbenspectrum [The Monochord and Color Spectrum] (1864)
- Experimentaluntersuchungen über Blasenbildung im Kreisförmig cylindrischen Röhren [Experimental studies of bubble formation in the Circular cylindrical tubes] (1868)
- Akustik: Fundamentalerscheinungen und Gesetze Einfach Tönender Körper (acoustics textbook, 1883)
- Measurement of Time [Theorie und Praxis der astronomischen Zeitbestimmung] (1876)
- Chladni's Lebe und Wirken [Chladni's Life and Work] (1888)
- "Die wolkenlosen Tage, beobachtet in den Jahren 1866 bis 1894 an der meteorologischen Station Marburg" ["Cloudless Days observed at the Meteorological Station at Marburg during the years 1886-1894"] (1895)
- Estimation of the Upper Limit of Audibility