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The Geometry of Music

Posted by kdawson on from the fantasia-with-strings dept.

An anonymous reader notes a Time.com profile of Princeton University music theorist Dmitri Tymoczko, who has applied some string-theory math to the study of music and found that all possible chordal music can be represented in a higher-dimensional space. His research was published last year in Science — it was the first paper on music theory they ever ran. The paper and background material, including movies, can be viewed at Tymoczko's site.

3 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm. by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Neanderthals had flutes and discovered the octave. If we are to assume music is linked to string theory, then the problem of where they all went is solved! They were the aliens all the time! (Seriously, the paper is interesting, but you can always describe a simple system with a complex one. I'd want solid evidence that this is the reduced form.)

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    1. Re:Hmmmm. by espiesior · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The wording is quite misleading. Tymoczko used "string theory" math... i.e. Geometric Topology (the article tries to play with "orbifolds" - fancy manifolds). Doesn't mean that string theory and music theory are intrinsically related in the physical world (which they are for the obvious OTHER reason), but rather, they can be expressed by the same monsters in the world of mathematics.

  2. Re:Actually by baldass_newbie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not the first time music has been represemted as mathematical equations

    You're right. Plato did it in the Timaeus about 2500 years ago.
    It's nice to see folks eschewing traditional Western culture and then 'discovering' things the same Western tradition developed over two millenia ago.
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