What is Digg?52 Comments
- dirtyfratboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Some of these are better than most songs on the radio today...
- LR2_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@halleyscomet
I think thats the point. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7So, basically, it sounds like someone trying to play a Casio while falling down the stairs.
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6FTA: "...a proof's tree structure, which is inherently suggestive of a musical score..."
Maybe to somebody who knows more about math than music. I suppose he sees tree structures in everything, including his scrambled eggs. - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Someone has been working overtime at Dexter's Laboratory.
- wadelindsey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yeah, except I would characterize this not as "establish[ing] a relationship going from math to music", but rather as "selecting a relationship going from math to music".
His source for "music" was inheriently arbitrary. While I believe in a correlation between the *mechanics* of music and mathematics, this source was simply organized data if you look at it from a statistical standpoint. He could have just as easily picked distances between subway stops and made mp3s of different lines of the MARTA. Do you think there would be some sort of august relationship between music and mass transit?
I'm not calling him out as a charlitain, he clearly says he just did this for fun, and I think it was a cool, if not a little geeky, experiment.
But lets not think this is some sort side effect of a cosmic relationship that's deeply woven into the laws of the universe. This isn't the golden ratio, nor is it fibonacci sequences - this is just ordered data interpretted as frequencies and timing. - halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Sadly, that's not saying much.
- marcME222, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I think this is awesome. We always knew that there was a mathematical relationship going from music to math (the beats and counts of a note, etc) -- but this establishes a relationship going from math to music.
+Digg^2 from this math geek.
(Also, instead of turning in analysis homework, I'll just bring an electronic piano to class and play the proof for my professor.) - nocode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Coltrane did the same thing with one of his songs (maybe more, i only know of one) only with letters. he mapped out the alphabet to a scale:
alphabet: A B C D E F G H I J ....
scale : : C D E F G A B C D E...
then wrote a melody with it. forgot the name of the tune, but I think it was a chick that he liked. i'm sure others did this as well - marcME222, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@wade:
I just thought what he did was cool -- providing a way to express a proof through music by associating the fundamental axioms of mathematics with (a set of) notes. He basically proved these analysis theorems from the basic building blocks of analysis. This alone I appreciated.
True, the association of the music was arbitrary -- but the inherent structure is there. If I chose a different (bijective) mapping between the music and the mathematical axioms, the repetitions and structure would still be the same -- though the sound would not be.
However, this being said, by no means am I saying that what he did was the missing link between math and music. I know the users in digg are all smart and are eager to share their knowledge with others, but there was no need to lecture me on what qualifies as a "relationship" in a technical sense. I know this isn't as big as pi or Zorn's lemma -- and I didn't claim it to be. As a (graduate) student of mathematics, believe me when I say that I know better than that. - drunkenoaf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3install Quicktime if you're on a Windows PC.
- EEBaum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Cool stuff... could be even cooler if they'd map it to anything but whole tones.
- dannygutters, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Sounds like in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
- Nyfeh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Reminds me of King Crimson... Especially those crazy guitar solos robert fripp would go on.. Interesting indeed!
- gregmo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i was expecting complex deep sounding piano but most of the stuff sorta sounds like a bad ragtime song.
- rhettd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach
- ubercow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2found the sound for the pythagorean theorem. http://www.ubercow.com/ps.mid
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a very non-complete approach to attempt to connect mathematics and music.
If this area interests you, consider looking into the music of Milton Babbitt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Babbitt .
It is almost infinitely more difficult to comprehend, but as a result, is an almost infinitely more interesting and complete system. - Rmplstltskn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You'll take what he gives you BITCH!
- Durinthal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As a CS major with a strong interest in both math and music (one of my recent projects was a cellular automaton based on chord progressions from the Common Practice Period).. this is pretty cool.
- MichalDvorak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's exactly what I thought of, too. Douglas Adams would be proud!
- antisthenex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. I'm a musician, and those proofs had very very little musical value. They sound like the same stuff someone could just tap out on the piano on a whim.
- baalthazar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2its strange that they make a nice music.... id like to see answers with numbers along with the song...
- maninthecold, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3if you like this you should read 'godel, esher, bach' i'm surprised he didn't even reference it somewhere. that book has all this kind of stuff and much more in it and it was published over 20 years ago.
- UnclePunk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Anyone remember the episode of Voyager where the doctor performed opera to a new race, but it turns out they were only interested in the music's mathematical relationship? They started to ask him to perform something that involved the intersection of two fractals http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/tv/voyager_613_spoilers_000127.html
- Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I don't handle mp3 (lol open source freak, blah blah), but if you aren't a Ogg Vorbis hater, I transcoded the Schröder-Bernstein Theorem, and this will be useful for you.
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=1e8162f - gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not a big fan of the music section.
If, however, you don't consider the rest of Metamath (and how it connects logic, number sets, and set theory) absolutely inspirational, please kill yourself now. It's amazing. - Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm seriously loving this. Thanks to whoever posted it.
- ear1grey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My immediate thoughts too. As soon as I read the article I tried a "<ctrl>-f godel". :-)
dugg. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i'm glad there's another person here who's a xenakis fan.
- wadelindsey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@marc -
Didn't mean to lecture- just took your comment as a chance to make a point. It just burns me up when people quote these relationships between music and math (as both a musician and an engineer), going so far as to point out that music students do better on SATs, etc.... Of course they do! Any group of students that volunteer for *anything* and have the patience to stick with it is going to have already been inclined to be disciplined and study, and will do better than a random sample, or the average!
Woah, there I go making another random point - sorry about getting in your face marc.
-wade - violentvinyl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1While I do agree that if you're determined to find something, you're going to find it no matter where you look. I also think these MIDIs defenitly have a distinctly more "musical" quality to them than similar experiments I've seen (heard?). Creator even goes on to mention similar experiments done with Pi that didn't have that musical quality to them, and points out that other experiments encorporate a beat and/or chords that are completely subjective. These are ALMOST pure math.
The creative, human element is what gives music its je nai se qua, and there will always be debate about whether we found the science in the art, or the art in the science. It's nice to seek out these universal truths though. For some, its a faith, just like any religion, and those MIDIs may be as close to god as they get.
I admire this the same way I admire Roman Catholic church architecture, or the Egyptian pyramids...
That is, with bright eyes and tongue planted firmly in cheek. - playfulmind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is cool. I even think it sounds good.
- kaniz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I loaded some of these files into Fruity Loops and played them with Native Instruments Absynth - some of them sound pretty cool.
- artgon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is actually really cool. When I learned all those theorems I thought they were useless... go figure.. ;)
- drwatson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have a musical project in the IDM vein (autechre, squarepusher, kid 606) where I use alot of constants for melody and drum programming, check it out if you like. http://www.garageband.com/ccommand
- violentvinyl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I read the article on marijuana too, fresh out of cancer though.
- drtyfrnk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3"Essentially, the musical notes correspond to the depth of the proof tree as the proof is constructed by the proof verifier"
Can I just say... wtf? - kevwalker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The following is more of a translation from architectural space to musical space, but Iannis Xenakis, who's theory of meta-art - the concept that an artistic expression can be realized mathematically in any artistic medium - is somewhat related to this study.
For more info, Wikipedia has what you need:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iannis_Xenakis
His most famous work, "Metastaseis"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastasis_%28Xenakis_composition%29
...is ear-splitting to listen to, but is intriguing nonetheless. - EiderDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anybody here ever read Douglas Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"? This kind of stuff has been talked about and done ad nauseum for at least 25 years.
- violentvinyl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0WinAmp
- zuoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wow, cantor's theorem actually sounds like an expressionist piece. zorn's does too, and i rather like how it trickles up and down a little bit, and every so often there's that bold lower note. with a little work, these things really could end up being something significant to the cannon of music.
- bnoj13, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1bury this please
- devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Looks cool, but like this guy ^ I can't play midis... The link on his page http://turbulence.org/Works/song/index.html is interesting too, and you can play stuff there. I did some music visualization stuff too with spectrum analysis here - http://robosexual.typepad.com/glob/science/index.html.
I second the mp3 request too. - RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3Yes, there is obviously a connection between math and music - but I would argue that the connection is not always very strong.
I know many fantastic musicians who can't comprehend math beyond college algebra... and a majority of the math majors I know have no rhythm... - burke, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Gah! I can't play midi files. Anyone want to mirror an mp3 of one or two? This seems pretty interesting.
- ZekeSulastin, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Your open-source ideology conflicts with just about every digital music player sold today - including mine (Zen Xtra). Get off your high-horse and just encode MP3 if an MP3 is requested. If we wanted Vorbis, we'd ask for Vorbis. Hint: use one of the many open-source MP3 encoding programs.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3just having to look at the word 'math' wants to make me throw up
- Daisuke, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2For the people that just *ahem* "read" the article on marijuana and cancer, this is really interesting. makes you wonder what the author was thinking (smoking?) when he came up with that page.
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