Al, you know I can never get enough of your writing, please elaborate on the arc thing.
Well, first ya gotta let it rain for 40 days and nights...
then go out and find yourself a piece of bare wire exactly .011 in diameter and nail each end into 2 fence posts spaced exactly one cubit apart.
Do not apply any tension, just enough to make sure the wire isn't sagging in the middle.
Do the same with a piece of wire that's .013 in diameter.
Stop and have a couple of beers (note they must both be exactly the same).
Now take the empties and tie one to each piece of wire, from the middle.
The .011 wire'll sag more in the middle than the .013 wire.
This is its arc of deflection, or travel, and is proof that the same amount of "striking force" (gravity, expressed as the weight of the beer bottle) input will create a bigger arc of travel in a light string than a medium one.
All of this is irrelevant to the motion a vibrating string makes.
A vibrating string looks like this:
Or, after 2 beers, like this:
Point being they don't vibrate in a flat plane, they vibrate in an arc around a center where the string would be, at rest, according to this formula:
All this is merely prelude to the discussion of what kind of wood floats best.
