It will be a great help if the reader will try for himself a simple, inexpensive little experiment. Stretch a string horizontally across a room and on to it tie two other strings so that they hang down vertically a little distance apart. To the ends of the two strings tie some small objects--a cotton reel on each will answer admirably. They will thus form two pendulums, and, to commence with, they should be just the same length. Having rigged all this up, give one pendulum a good swing. It will impart motion of a to-and-fro variety to the supporting string, which in its turn will pass that motion on to the other pendulum. In a very short time, then, the second pendulum will be vibrating like the first. Indeed the _whole_ motion of the first will shortly become transferred to the second, so that the second will be swinging and the first still. Then the second will re-transfer its energy back to the first, and so they will go on until the original energy given to the first pendulum is exhausted. The point to be observed is the quickness with which one pendulum responds to the impulses given it by the other, and the ease with which the energy of the one passes to the other. Now reduce the length of one pendulum. On setting the first in motion a certain irregular spasmodic action is to be observed in the second, but it is very different from the "whole-hearted" response in the previous instance. In the former case the second one responded naturally and readily to the first. Now its response is reluctant in the extreme. It moves somewhat because it is forced to, but it is apparently unwilling. Energy has to be _impressed_ upon it. There is no readiness, because there is no sympathy between them. That sympathy between the two equal pendulums is "resonance." The same occurs between two violin or piano strings when they are "in tune." The explanation is that a pendulum has a certain natural frequency which depends upon its length. Another pendulum of the same length, arranged as just described, therefore imparts impulses to it at just the frequency which is natural to it. Consequently the effect is a cumulative one, and it responds quickly. Impulses at any other frequency tend more or less to neutralise each other. In the same way a string, of a certain length and a certain tension, has a frequency peculiarly its own, and it will respond to another similar string because the other gives its impulses at its own natural frequency. It is on record that an engine in a factory happened to run at precisely the same speed as the natural frequency of the building, with the result that after a little time the structure shook so much that it collapsed.