The music of the Primes
If you're kind of into maths, then Alex's Adventures in Numberland will totally blow you away. Even if you're not that interested by maths, the book is so packed full of exciting and fascinating 'dispatches from the world of mathematics' that you will find yourself testing some of the ideas.
The book has linked me to some pretty amazing web pages that have found innovative ways of displaying a series of numbers.
The first I want to link to is the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Way back in the pre-internet days of 1963, mathematician Neil Sloane started to collect sequences of numbers. Writing on pieces of card, he would diligently give reference numbers to all of his series. For example, the sequence of natural numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...) was given the label 'A27'. By the mid-nineties, the list contained over 5,000 distinct number sequences. Of course, then 'the internet happened', and Sloane now receives roughly 10,000 submissions from around the world. What's great about the website (linked above) is that there is an option to listen to a sequence. Each number is mapped onto a piano keyboard. Since there are only 88 keys on a grand piano keyboard, the number 89 will be the first piano key played again. This means that for the natural numbers we hear a loop of all the notes played one-after-the-other. Other, more interesting sounds can be made by using different sequences of numbers. For example, try using Racaman's sequence for a chilling piece that is 'dissonant, but [...] does not sounds random'. The prime numbers also make a strange piece and it's weird to think that this is literally 'the music of the primes'.
The second nerdy website is MUSICALGORITHMS. What's cool about this site is that you can put any number in, and after a few minutes of twiddling, you can get a midi file out. For example, I wanted to listen to Pi. After separating each of the first 100 digits of Pi...
(3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679.....)
...with a comma, and selecting the range of keys to between 0 and 9, my Pi input was converted into keys on a piano (0 corresponded to a pause, 1 corresponded to middle C, 2 to C# etc.) You can even download any piece to save for later!
Unfortunately I can't share my 'Pi concerto', but most of the fun is in doing your own experiments with numbers.
The book has linked me to some pretty amazing web pages that have found innovative ways of displaying a series of numbers.
The first I want to link to is the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Way back in the pre-internet days of 1963, mathematician Neil Sloane started to collect sequences of numbers. Writing on pieces of card, he would diligently give reference numbers to all of his series. For example, the sequence of natural numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...) was given the label 'A27'. By the mid-nineties, the list contained over 5,000 distinct number sequences. Of course, then 'the internet happened', and Sloane now receives roughly 10,000 submissions from around the world. What's great about the website (linked above) is that there is an option to listen to a sequence. Each number is mapped onto a piano keyboard. Since there are only 88 keys on a grand piano keyboard, the number 89 will be the first piano key played again. This means that for the natural numbers we hear a loop of all the notes played one-after-the-other. Other, more interesting sounds can be made by using different sequences of numbers. For example, try using Racaman's sequence for a chilling piece that is 'dissonant, but [...] does not sounds random'. The prime numbers also make a strange piece and it's weird to think that this is literally 'the music of the primes'.
The second nerdy website is MUSICALGORITHMS. What's cool about this site is that you can put any number in, and after a few minutes of twiddling, you can get a midi file out. For example, I wanted to listen to Pi. After separating each of the first 100 digits of Pi...
(3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679.....)
...with a comma, and selecting the range of keys to between 0 and 9, my Pi input was converted into keys on a piano (0 corresponded to a pause, 1 corresponded to middle C, 2 to C# etc.) You can even download any piece to save for later!
Unfortunately I can't share my 'Pi concerto', but most of the fun is in doing your own experiments with numbers.
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