I mentioned in another thread that it might be possible to measure the resonant frequency of a ski and (if so) that it might be somehow meaningful in detecting material degradation ("sk breakdown").
I still have no evidence for the second part of that, but today I conducted a simple experiment that suggested a ski does have a fairly consistent resonant frequency that is not very challenging to measure.
I used my iPad's Fine Tuner app, and I grabbed an old Goode 9900 that had no bindings on it. Then I just held it in various places with one hand and smacked it in various ways with the other hand. The frequency measured was shockingly consistent at 115-116 Hz. To be expected, there were also occasional readings of half or double (58 or 230), which is how resonance works and, if anything, makes a stronger argument that I'm actually measuring an inherent property of the ski.
Mildly interesting. If anybody has an iPad or iPhone, get the free Finer Tuner app and then grab some skis without bindings on them and see if we discover anything.
(Most likely we won't, of course, but useless experiments sometime lead to better ones in the future!)