J. Murray Gibson
Associate Laboratory Director, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
Music, Fourier and Wave-Particle Duality


Art and science are intimately connected. There is probably no art that reveals this more than music. Music can be used as a tool to teach physics and engineering to non-scientists, illustrating such diverse concepts as fourier analysis and quantum mechanics. This colloquium is aimed in reverse, to explain some interesting aspects of music to physicists.
Topics include:

What determines the frequency of notes on a musical scale?

What is harmony and why would fourier care?

Where did the blues come from? (We' re talking the "physics of the blues", and not "the blues of physics" - that's another colloquium).

Is there a musical particle?

What has music to do with nanotechnology? (I don't have an answer to this one yet, but I still have a week to think about it).

I aim to include as much music as physics, and even though the creative originality of the content will be far below the usual physics colloquium standards, I hope that this seminar will be a memorable diversion from the norm.