Friday, December 16, 2011
A musical pitch is a blend of many different frequencies beside the fundamental. Here’s a visualization of the different vibrational modes of an ideal string. The string’s movements are the sum of all these different modes simultaneously.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
In high school science class, you probably saw a picture of an atom that looked like this: The picture shows a stylized nucleus with red protons and blue neutrons, surrounded by three grey electrons. It’s an attractive and iconic image. It makes a nice logo. Unfortunately, it’s also totally wrong. There’s an extent to which [...]
Filed in Math, Music Theory, Physics, Science
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Also tagged chemistry, einstein, electromagnetism, harmonics, linkedin, Math, Music Theory, orbitals, quantum mechanics, visualization
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Thursday, September 29, 2011
Gravity is the warping of spacetime by mass or energy. A mass like the Earth warps spacetime so that the shortest path, the “path of least resistance,” for inertial movement is towards the Earth’s center. Using instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s possible to literally see the warping of spacetime by very massive objects [...]
Filed in Physics, Science
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Also tagged astronomy, dark matter, einstein, gravity, linkedin, loop quantum gravity, quora, relativity, space, spacetime, string theory
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Saturday, August 13, 2011
Probability is a deeply weird and disturbing topic. The harder I look at it, the weirder and more disturbing it becomes. I find the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to be the least weird and disturbing way to think about it.
I follow science news the way normal dudes follow sports. If you’re geekily inclined like me, you may have heard that the particle physics people are getting closer to producing the Higgs boson. You may have wondered what that is exactly, and why you should care. The science press has nicknamed the Higgs “the God [...]
Today in the NY Times there’s an article about NASA’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory. Check out this amazing video of the sun in action. The sun was on my mind today anyway, it being so nice and cloudless outside. But days like today also cause me anxiety. I’m a fair-haired sunburn-prone type, and my dad [...]
Filed in Physics
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Also tagged antimatter, beatles, electromagnetism, fusion, george harrison, gravity, nina simone, paul simon, quarks, Science, space
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There are a lot of different musical instruments out there. Just about all of them share four basic components: a harmonic oscillator, a source of noise, a control surface for modulation, and a resonator.
Filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Music, Physics, Video Games
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Also tagged chiptunes, guitar, Music, Music Theory, overtones, resonance, singing, synths, Video Games
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Say “oooh” as in “noodle.” Then say “aaah” as in “park.” When you say “oooh” your mouth is more closed, with less resonating space and a smaller opening. This configuration blocks the higher overtones of your voice. When you say “aaah” your jaw and lips open, creating more resonating space and letting more high overtones [...]
Filed in Hardware, Music, Physics
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Also tagged electronica, envelope filter, funk, guitar, harmonics, jimi hendrix, keybs, metal, overtones, physiology, pop, resonance, rock, seventies, sixties, soul, speech, wah pedal
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Humans are animals. Our tools are extensions of our bodies into the environment, like beavers and beaver ponds, coral and coral reefs, plants and oxygen. We’re unusual in the extent of our bodies’ impact on our environment, but plenty of other organism shape their environment to suit their needs. Technology is part of our extended [...]
Filed in Evolution, Hardware, Technology
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Also tagged big bang, biology, chemistry, e-waste, Evolution, green, memes, petroleum, richard dawkins
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I’m a humanities guy, but I’ve never lost my childhood love of math and science. I’m looking forward to the Large Hadron Collider being fired up next year the way normal male Americans look forward to the NBA playoffs. I like to be an informed fan, and since Einstein is the Michael Jordan of scientists, [...]