1. vibration, sympathetic A vibration in a cord or other body susceptible of elastic vibration produced by the vibrations of exactly the same period in a neighboring vibrating body. Thus if two tuning forks are tuned to precisely the same pitch, and are placed near each other, if one is sounded it will start the other into vibration by sympathy.
In electricity its application is found in electric resonance experiments. The resonator has a definite period of electric resonance, and is made to give a spark by the exciter of identical period. This is by what may be called electric sympathetic vibration, and is exactly analogous to the action of the tuning forks upon each other.
Definitions of vibration, sympathetic
