Lambda the Ultimate

inactiveTopic The Sound of Mathematics
started 4/11/2004; 9:54:39 AM - last post 4/12/2004; 4:53:42 AM

Chris Rathman - The Sound of Mathematics blueArrow
4/11/2004; 9:54:39 AM (reads: 10680, responses: 4)

The Sound of Mathematics

Since Goedel, Escher, Bach seems to be relevant to programming languages, I figure we'd concentrate on the musical portion of Ehud's vacation time. :-)

This site has GM MIDI files of algorithmic music determined by mathematics and the musical preferences of a human.

(page gives me annoying script alerts, but works fine past that point)
Posted to fun by Chris Rathman on 4/11/04; 9:55:20 AM

Frank Atanassow - Re: The Sound of Mathematics blueArrow
4/11/2004; 11:10:57 AM (reads: 409, responses: 0)

Wow, this is incredible! But there must have been an awful lot of `musical preferences of a human' involved in the composition---it just sounds too good! Still, looking at the `Methods' link it seems like they really are generated automatically and not just `inspired by' (say) pi, or thematic. Of course, if you use a different transform for each number/function/etc., then you can inject however much personal aesthetics you please into each piece. (For example, if your transform is a constant function...)

Really amazing, though.

Gregory Wright - Re: The Sound of Mathematics blueArrow
4/11/2004; 2:06:13 PM (reads: 366, responses: 0)

On the Metamath web site you can hear formal proofs set music:
http://au.metamath.org/mpegif/mmmusic.html
Now I wonder what kind of music we might get from a graph reduction engine....

Mark Evans - Re: The Sound of Mathematics blueArrow
4/11/2004; 2:33:28 PM (reads: 364, responses: 0)

Frank: it just sounds too good!

Would you mean that in a techno-Goth way, Frank? (Ouch, don't hit me!) It's a nice project.

GEB had an occult feeling like a secular Kabbalah, complete with golems and weird metaphysics - hardly the scientific method at work.

Curiously, Bach's compositions faced criticism in their day for being too "mechanical." They are priceless treasures, of course.

Danny Ayers - Re: The Sound of Mathematics blueArrow
4/12/2004; 4:53:42 AM (reads: 269, responses: 0)

A couple of years back I did some code (will post to web when I find it) to generate fractal music - the MIDI notes (a bass and treble part, and I think the timing too) was determined by a simple fractal algorithm, and just kept running. It was much more pleasant than random notes, and sometimes came out with genuinely musical sequences.