Mathematical Music or Musical Mathematics?

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:49:23 -0500

What makes music sound good? Click here for an intriguing answer to that question from Princeton professor Dmitri Tymoczko. Here is the abstract of his paper on Geometrical Music Theory: "Western musicians traditionally classify pitch collections by disregarding the effects of five kinds of musical transformation: octave shift, permutation, transposition, inversion, and cardinality change. Here we model these transformations mathematically, showing that they generate 32 equivalence classes of chords, 243 equivalence classes of chord sequences, and 32 families of geometrical quotient spaces, in which both chords and chord-sequences are represented. This model reveals connections between diverse music-theoretical concepts, yields new tools for analyzing music, unifies many existing geometrical representations of musical structure, and suggests an answer to a longstanding question about how to represent the similarity between chord-types."

Celebrate Pi Day on March 14!

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:45:42 -0500

How to Celebrate Pi Day: "Pi Day is a special day in the lives of many a nerd. Just like normal people celebrate Valentine's Day or National Pancake Day, nerds around the world will gather and join hands in the shape whose ratio of its circumference to its diameter is the most revered mathematical constant in the known universe. Below are some tips on making this day (celebrated on March 14 at 1:59pm) memorable to one and all." More...

From Wikipedia: "Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day are two unofficial holidays held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14 in American date format), due to π being equal to roughly 3.14. Sometimes it is celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. (commonly known as Pi Minute). If π is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second. Pi Approximation Day may be observed on any of several dates, most often July 22 (22/7 (European date format) is a popular approximation of π). March 14 also happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday." More...

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Mathematical Music or Musical Mathematics?

Celebrate Pi Day on March 14!