In The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe, physicist and jazz saxophonist Dr. Stephon Alexander revisits the ancient realm where music, physics, and the cosmos were one. This cosmological journey accompanies Alexander’s own tale of struggling to reconcile his passion for music and physics, from taking music lessons as a boy in the Bronx to studying theoretical physics at Imperial College. Playing the saxophone and improvising with equations, Alexander uncovered the connection between the fundamental waves that make up sound and the fundamental waves that make up everything else. As he reveals, the ancient poetic idea of the “music of the spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics. Dr. Alexander is the Royce Family Professor at Brown University’s Physics Department. In 2013, he won the prestigious American Physical Society Bouchet Award for “his contributions to theoretical cosmology." He is also a jazz musician, and recently finished recording his first electronic jazz album with Erin Rioux.
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Looks like spam to me Lois.
Spam. Typical.
Thanks for the heads-up, Lois. I preordered it through Apple’s iBook Store. Can’t stand the Kindle interface.
I’ve long believed there is a relationship between music and mathematics (not my idea, I’ve read it from several mathematicians and physicists) and this book sounds fascinating.
Looks like spam to me Lois. Spam. Typical.IOW, "Bah! Humbug!" (Beware the ghost of Christmas future.)
I know a lot about music and some stuff about mathematics, and some buzzwords sound suspicious.
" . . . the connection between the fundamental waves that make up sound and the fundamental waves that make up everything else . . . "
Oh really?? What the hell is a “fundamental” wave?
I know a lot about music and some stuff about mathematics, and some buzzwords sound suspicious. " . . . the connection between the fundamental waves that make up sound and the fundamental waves that make up everything else . . . " Oh really?? What the hell is a "fundamental" wave?Here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nS_aR8XX_U
Although, if your talking music and physics this is the wave to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvJAgrUBF4w Maybe not music, but outrageously fascinating, (more fun than comparing nitrogen vs CO2 beer bubbles) then again considering what some people try to pass as music . . . . . :zip:Oh heck that was supposed to be a QUOTE not EDIT - hate it when I do that.
Looks like spam to me Lois. Spam. Typical.It's a simple link to a blurb about the book. Do you count all blurbs as spam? The best thing you can do is never click on any links. They you'll be safe fom spam and everything else.
I know a lot about music and some stuff about mathematics, and some buzzwords sound suspicious. " . . . the connection between the fundamental waves that make up sound and the fundamental waves that make up everything else . . . " Oh really?? What the hell is a "fundamental" wave?Here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nS_aR8XX_U Those are just waves. What makes it "fundamental" in the sense of universal connectiveness? The only thing I can think of which might be close is a sine function, but I don't think that's what was intended. Particle/wave duality in quantum physics? None of those things have much to do with music.
How about it’s all fractal.
But actually I was just playing, tossed in a couple of the coolest waves I could think of.
(I know I’m a poor substitute for DM)
And, okay you found me out, I don’t know have a clue what a ‘fundamental wave’ could be.
I do know waves constantly appear throughout natural. :red:
A 'fundamental wave" could be how Robert Tilton signals “hello” or “goodbye”.
A 'fundamental wave" could be how Robert Tilton signals "hello" or "goodbye".Who?
A 'fundamental wave" could be how Robert Tilton signals "hello" or "goodbye".Who? He's the 1st relatively famous (and ridiculous) fundamentalist evangelical preacher who popped into my mind.
Jazz great Theodious Monk said it best," musicians are mathematicians."
I’m about halfway through the book, reading one chapter per day. I think the following passage summarizes it best. After discussing how Pythagoras came upon his theory of vibrating strings (the foundation of Western musical harmony) after listening to the different tones hammers made in a blacksmith shop, the author goes on to connect this to Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
String harmonics remained elusive, but Newton, in discovering his laws of motion, unknowingly set the groundwork from which the physics of strings would finally be understood. Over time, his successors would fit together the rest of the puzzle pieces to complete the picture of string motion. From strings, a description of wave motion would flow, which, in turn, would ultimately be the glue going quantum physics, cosmology and music.The final piece of the mathematical puzzle was the development of Fourier Transforms. Yes, there is a fundamental connection between music and physics. Music is physics.
Answer to “What is a fundamental wave?”
Assuming the phrase means what I would call a fundamental tone, or merely a fundamental.
Difficult to explain without showing you on my violin, and drawing some diagrams. But I will try.
Most sounds we hear, – especially music, but including our voices and other sounds – have a lot
of overtones. The sound of a tone produced on an oscillator would be an example of a pure
tone with no overtones. The oscillator tone would be a fundamental. A note played on a
violin, or a piano, for instance, has a lot of overtones. So if you play a Middle C on the piano,
you hear the Middle C, and you also hear overtones at the octave, at the octave-and-fifth, at
two octaves, and so on. The middle C note, that your finger is resting on, is the fundamental.