The Physics of Sound, Acoustics and Music and Many False Assumptions by Thomas Sanford Wagner

I do know very much about moonquakes during the lunar missions. Your description could be interesting to study that phenomenon, though this is not something questioning the foundations of physics, it could be something questioning the foundations of the moon ;)

Regards,

Donatello

Ben

I don't know if there is sufficient material to warrant writing a book but I have written several comprehensive papers about the subject. I have been trying to get to be able to upgrade my Webpage but I have it so messed up I think I will have to make an entire new Web page.

Meanwhile if you wish to read the papers, titled Structural Resonance I will be glad to send you the Preface and Parts 1 and 2.

If you wish to read them send me an email. That will provide me with your URL.

Thanks for your very nice reply.

Tom Wagner

Tom,

I would be quite interested in reading them... I don't see your email address on your essay, and I'd prefer not to put mine on the open thread, but it's on the first page of my essay here. Or you could give me your webpage URL. Take care,

Ben

Ben

Go to my Webpage - wropera.com. You will find the webpage is rather sparse and incomplete. I created it some years ago simply because the corporations and institutions that I deal with expect you to have a Web page. I am now in the process of remaking the Web page. Then it will be much more interesting.

Go to the 'contact us' page and send an email with the Contact Button. That way both our URLs will not be shown.

Tom

Dear Thomas Wagner,

Isn't my argument compelling? Future music cannot be heard for sure in advance ;).

Eckard

Joel

I found your thoughts both interesting quite original. I have a somewhat different view of gravity - which follows:

Einstein, who, more than anyone else gave us our current view of the nature of gravity, said that gravity is not a force and yet in most of contemporary physics gravity is treated as if it were. It appears that the presently held view of gravity is that it does not pull you into the chair in which you are sitting but rather, because of the curvature of space-time, it pushes you into the chair. This is a bit absurd; Gravity is either a force or it isn't, it simply can't be both.

Einstein used the example of a man jumping from a building. The man would feel no force pushing or pulling him. The only way he would know he is moving is by the motion of the building that seems to be moving up and the friction of the wind. While nobody challenges this it seems to be almost universally ignored. The example of the man falling is a good one but gravity can be proved to not be a force by use of a very simple, basic physical law.

Suppose I hold a ball of a given weight stationary in the air. The understanding of vectors tells us that a force equal to the force I am supplying must be pushing down on the ball. Vector analysis also tells us that a resulting vector will appear in a direction opposite the acute angle formed by the two vectors. The acceleration of the resultant vector, if the forces are constant, is dependent upon the sine of the acute angle formed by the two vectors. In the case of my holding the ball the angle formed by my pushing up and the alleged force of gravity pushing down is 180°. The sine of 180° is zero so the resultant vector is zero. It is important to remember that the force and acceleration of both vectors is still very real.

Newton's second law of motion says that Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration - F=ma. If I hold a ball ten times heavier the force I supply must be ten times stronger as well. In order to the stationary position of the ball I must also increase the downward force ten times. Herein lies the problem.

Acceleration is dependent on force and mass. The only way acceleration can be changed is to alter either the force or the mass. We know that acceleration in a gravitational field is a constant. On the earth it is 32 feet per second squared. If the gravity of the earth is a force and created by the curvature of space-time then this force too must be constant. The only thing that is a variable is the mass however, if we change the mass we change either the force or the acceleration. Thus either heavier objects fall more slowly than lighter objects or the acceleration changes as a result of the change in mass. We know empirically that this cannot be true as both force and acceleration are constant. Therefore gravity cannot be a force.

The ball is now ten times heavier and thus the gravitational field (if indeed that is the correct term) is ten times as strong. The curvature of the space-time created by the ball is greater and so, if gravity is a force, the ball is pulling the earth with a stronger force. Actually the acceleration of the earth toward the ball has increased and so the earth is falling toward the ball at a greater velocity. We can see this in Newton's other formula: While this does not exactly hold in GR it is sufficient for this argument. The increase in the apparent attraction of the earth and the ten pound ball is so small as to be virtually immeasurable.

If gravity is not a force why do we feel our weight when sitting in a chair? Consider a situation where two opposing vectors are both forces, such as two cue sticks pushing on a billiard ball at two points in direct opposition.

The change in the position of the ball is zero and we can state that this is the resultant force of the two primary vectors. We have the mass of the cue ball and the force applied by the cue sticks. This means that there is in both cases an acceleration. An object can have any number of independent motions and in this case the ball is moving in two directly opposite directions but the ball is moving. The second law of motion states that force and mass will produce an acceleration. These two opposing accelerations do not 'cancel each other'. They create a vector with zero acceleration. Perhaps it may be more correct to say that they produce no vector.

Since gravity behaves much like a force, we feel our weight in a chair because we are still falling. Just because the chair stops a change in position does not mean we are not still falling. Our feeling of weight comes from momentum. A falling body has a certain momentum even if it does not actually change its position. It is this momentum we feel when sitting in a chair.

Since gravity is not in any way a force it has none of the properties of a force. It does not propagate. It would only propagate if it were a force. Contemporary physics not only thinks of gravity as a force but appears to think of it as an electromagnetic force. Many, many hours have been spent by really brilliant people trying to reconcile the 'force' of gravity with such forces as magnetism. The mass of an atom does not create the curvature of space-time any more than the nucleus creates the electron. The curvature is an integral part of the atom that was created when the atom was created. It cannot be modified nor removed.

Newton, when he worked out his gravitation theories, was concerned with action at a distance. Even though gravity is ubiquitous through the universe there is no action at a distance because there is no action. Gravity does not do anything, it simply is. It is not one of the elementary forces as it is not a force. There is no need for energy mediating bosons to mediate the force ergo, thus there is no graviton. I seriously doubt that the Large Hadron Collider will find any evidence of a massless, spin-2 boson.

It has been said that if the sun were to suddenly disappear we would not be aware of it for eight and a half minutes. That is true but has nothing to with the curvature of space-time and thus gravity. If the sun were to disappear instantly the curvature would disappear instantly as well. We would not sense this in any way, since the path of earth around the sun is a geodesic nothing would have changed; we would still be traveling in a straight line. Eight and a half minutes later everything would become instantly dark and start to quickly become very cold. That we would certainly sense and then we would know that the sun had disappeared.

The extent of a gravitational field appears to be limitless. It diminishes as described by the inverse square law but never completely disappears. Thus the entire universe is one large structure formed of a myriad of space-time curvatures.

Finally; since gravity is not a force why it is considered along with magnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force to be one of the primary force interactions of physical reality? Gravity is not a force, it is a condition.

If indeed gravity is not a force, are we correct is thinking that gravity functions at the quantum level? Does an elementary particle warp the space-time or is the concept of space even valid at the quantum level. It seems quite possible that gravity at quantum level may be a mathematical concept that would only be valid if gravity is a force.

Loel

Once the program dropped my formula. The missing formula is : F = G(m1m2/r2)

It is not particulately important to the post but just to keep everything tidy.

Jonathon

A thought about your mention of harmonic tunings. Apart from such dada-esque or musique concrete-like musical forms such as Chinese Opera of the Japanese GaGaKu virtually all the world's music conforms to the same mathematical structure. Just about every culture we discover has one common musical element, the pentatonic scale. From this basic scale all of the various music systems develop.

There is only one pentatonic scale and it is defined by the overtone numbers that comprise it. These are 1, 9, 5, 3, 27.

The difference between the East Indian scale and the western scale is the major sixth. The western scale is a reciprocal scale (I explain this in my Structural Resonance papers) and the major sixth is the ratio is 5/3. The Eat Indian scale which is not reciprocal and usually sounds over a drone requires the major sixth ratio to be 27/16. Apart from that the scales are identical but their functions are quite different.

Tom

Tom,

I sent you an email... please let me know if you don't receive it. Take care,

Ben

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for leaving a comment on my page, and thanks for sharing your essay. I think that your essay is quite awesome, because I do love music a lot and the essay taught me some things.

I was reading a bit about your work called The Legend of the Rood, and that got me reading about a whole lot of other related things, so thanks for that too. It's not really related, but I have to ask: have you read the books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire by GRR Martin? Aside from the light dusting of fantasy, it's a pretty fascinating interpretation of what medieval life might have been like. As a bonus for me, his universe also includes songs and music. :)

- Shawn

Dear Maestro Thomas

Welcome back this year to the fqxi essay contest!

Thank you for an exceptionally well-written and interesting essay. Your observations about vibrations and resonance by, in and outside of instruments made me realize how much I am missing. I love music and have made some 70 paintings in a series called Painting the Music made whilst listening to and reacting to the compositions of various composers. But it was music mostly heard through headphones. I can imagine what I have missed by not being inside an acoustically perfect space.

Standing waves are not only important in acoustics of course. Whether within laser cavities or in models of the atom conceived as a standing wave, they are very important in physics. The late Gabriel LaFrenier speculated that matter is made up of standing waves - a new take on resolving the particle-wave dichotomy.

I hope you will read and rate my fqxi essay Fix Physics!

Wishing you all the best

Vladimir

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments on my essay forum. It took me a while to find them, and I have not written a reply yet, but I expect to do so in the next day or so. I like the idea that gravity is not a force, as such. This would seem to fit well with a topological approach to particle mass like that in Michael Goodband's essay. But great food for thought either way.

Thanks also for the detailed replies to my comments on your forum above. I like what was said there too. More detailed comments when there is time.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Tom, as a musician myself in my other life, and author of a popular recording book ("Guerrilla Home Recording"), I was naturally attracted to your essay. While I don't think you're focusing on the most foundational issues in physics, your essay is fascinating and enlightening nonetheless, and touches on a lot of mysteries in acoustics. For example, I've always wondered why it's impossible to get a loudspeaker playing a recording of speech to sound like a person in the room talking. Or, what it would take to get a recorded mix, played on speakers or headphones, to truly sound like a live performance. Even from a block away, you can always tell whether the music coming from a venue is live or recorded. In college, I thought the solution would involve starting the signal chain with a "digital microphone" that operated similar to the human cochlea, until someone pointed out that turning such signals back into analog sound would necessitate basically simulating the human brain.

Anyway, thanks for submitting your essay; I'll surely re-read it when things settle down. You deserve to be doing better in the competition. Best of luck.

Dear Tom,

It's refreshing to read and consider an essay that hits so close to home in the human aspects of experience. I have a background in music also and am going to give your essay a good rating. Maybe you'll consider my essay that has very much to do with waves (EM waves) and the dispersion and Doppler processes which conspire to produce the relativistic effects.

I think you could have said much more about the comparative staleness of equal tempered scales. In Europe, especially, there is a bit of a revival in rebuilding cathedral organs that have their original tempered tunings. The experience of hearing one brings the music alive gives a unique character to each and every musical piece.

It's unfortunately seldom expressed or possibly even little recognized that excellent performers modify the pitch of the tones of the scale they are playing or singing to suit the harmonic context of the passage. That recognition of artistry could and should be taught.

With best wishes,

Steve

Dear Thomas

Music in Terms of Science

James Q. Feng arXiv:1209.3767 [pdf, other]

I think interesting for you.

Steve

Thank you for the very nice post. I shall certainly read your essay.

I did not go further into equal tempered tuning as 25,000 characters do not go very far. The tempered scale is the bane of music today. Technology should have completely eradicated it but yet it persists like a summer cold. Most Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) are set to the tempered scale and consider natural tuning as de-tuning. Paul Hindemith felt that our toleration of tempered tuning is likened to our ability to withstand pain.

Music groups that can affect the tuning never play in the equal tempered system. They always make precise, discrete shifts in certain chords or intervals to keep the music being played in correct tune. This shift is always an interval, called a comma, equal, to 81\80. This known as the Syntonic Comma, sometimes referred to as the Dydimus Comma. Theorists usually say it is about 21.51 cents. This comma is equal to exactly 1.0125. Defining it in the tonometric system is as useless as it is absurd.

Some years ago I scored a film on Ancient Peru and did some research at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Junius Byrd, the curator, gave me a book about the old Quechua instruments, especially the pan flutes. These people made remarkable instruments. One set of pan flutes had two pipes that were pitched very close together. The researcher gave the interval between the two pipes as about 22 cents. He never realized that the actual interval had to have been the Dydimus comma and that would indicate that ancient Peruvian music had an harmonic structure.

Is there any more dreadful sound in the world than a romantic organ tuned to the tempered scale? (Except perhaps those idiotic tympani rolls tacked onto the end of the Romeo and Juliet Overture).

The adaptation of the tempered system is quite recent. Because a set of pieces by Bach have the unfortunate title of Well-Tempered Clavichord many people wrongly think that Bach was the initiator of the tempered system. Bach did not invent nor did he use the tempered scale. The Well-Tempered Clavichord is two sets of preludes and fugues that are written in all twelve keys. Each piece is quite tonal and harpsichord players tune their instruments to the key of each just as they did in the time of Bach.

While notions of isometric tuning go back to the ancient Greeks the notion of the tempered scale is usually attributed to Andreas Werkmeister, a contemporary of Newton. The scale came into common usage toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was popularized by British organ makers as the tempered scale gives the illusion of being able to modulate to any key.

We can only hope that both the tempered scale and the tonometric system, like old soldiers, will soon simply fade away.

Tom Wagner

Karl

Thank you for that fine post.

I feel that music is (or should be) one of the foundations of physics. Quantum physicists are fond of saying that when you study quantum physics you are studying music. The problem is that most physicists do not have a true understanding of real music theory. They shouldn't feel too badly as most musicians don't either. The worst offenders in the wrong ideas of musical theory are the university music departments. Igor Stravinsky once said of university music theory departments that they are places where professors of counterpoint grope forever in regions of outer darkness. That may be a bit harsh but then Stravinsky was never known for being a gentle spirit.

I am finally getting physicists and non-physicists alike interested in these ideas. When I first wrote the Structural Resonance papers I got some heavy resistance. Fortunately I had for a friend and mentor Dr. Frederick Seitz, Fred was a former president of the National Science Foundation. He was president of the Rockefeller University when I met him. He was also on the Boards of Directors of more companies that you could shake a stick at. His help and encouragement made it all happen.

I have most of the tools I need and some of the coding written to try and be able to actually record and reproduce truly real sound. How these ideas interface with physics will need input from physicists but the postings I have been getting are very encouraging.

Tom

Karl

Thank you for that fine post.

I feel that music is (or should be) one of the foundations of physics. Quantum physicists are fond of saying that when you study quantum physics you are studying music. The problem is that most physicists do not have a true understanding of real music theory. They shouldn't feel too badly as most musicians don't either. The worst offenders in the wrong ideas of musical theory are the university music departments. Igor Stravinsky once said of university music theory departments that they are places where professors of counterpoint grope forever in regions of outer darkness. That may be a bit harsh but then Stravinsky was never known for being a gentle spirit.

I am finally getting physicists and non-physicists alike interested in these ideas. When I first wrote the Structural Resonance papers I got some heavy resistance. Fortunately I had for a friend and mentor Dr. Frederick Seitz, Fred was a former president of the National Science Foundation. He was president of the Rockefeller University when I met him. He was also on the Boards of Directors of more companies that you could shake a stick at. His help and encouragement made it all happen.

I have most of the tools I need and some of the coding written to try and be able to actually record and reproduce truly real sound. How these ideas interface with physics will need input from physicists but the postings I have been getting are very encouraging.

Tom