Ernst Chladni at the understanding of electron orbitals. Since at least 1738, a musical instrument called a "Glasspiel" or "verrillon", created by filling beer glasses with varying amounts of water, was popular in Europe. The beer glasses were struck by wooden mallets shaped like spoons to produce "church and other solemn music". Benjamin Franklin was sufficiently impressed by a verrillon performance on a visit to London in 1757 that he created his own instrument, the glass armonica, in 1762. Franklin's armonica inspired several other instruments, including two created by Chladni. In 1791, Chladni invented the musical instrument called the "euphon" (not to
Glass harmonica fingers dipped in water" ("hydro-" for "water", "daktul-" for "finger", "psych-" for "soul"). The "Oxford Companion to Music" mentions that this word is "the longest section of the Greek language ever attached to any musical instrument, for a reader of "The Times" wrote to that paper in 1932 to say that in his youth he heard a performance of the instrument where it was called a "hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica"." The Museum of Music in Paris displays a hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. Because its sounding portion is made of glass, the glass harmonica is a type of crystallophone. The phenomenon of rubbing a wet finger around