0:00

- <silence> - Hello and welcome to the Physics World Stories podcast.

0:07

I'm Andrew Gluster, and you might be thinking, hang on,

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isn't that a new jingle? Of course you are. Right.

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And later in the podcast we'll be hearing about the physics

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behind it and how it was created by Professor Philip Morty.

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But first, you may have heard in the news

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about Taylor Swift fans causing seismic activity at concerts

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during her era tour. Here's Jackie Kaplan ach.

0:34

- I am a professor of geophysics at Western Washington University.

0:39

Um, I'm sort of a seism, I'm a seismologist by trade,

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so I mostly study earthquakes. Um, the earthquakes I study are usually in volcanic systems,

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so I'm sort of a volcano seismologist.

0:52

And then a lot of what I do in my research is, you know,

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earthquakes in some respects are sort of a type of sound,

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but we also listen to, to genuinely

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to sound in these systems. So I do acoustics as well of volcanic systems.

1:07

So listening to volcanoes, listening

1:09

to the sounds they make, um, and trying to understand what they did.

1:12

- We're gonna get onto music, but I'm, you've made me interested in that now.

1:15

So what <laugh> what, what can we learn from the sound of volcanoes?

1:20

- So let's start with earthquakes. 'cause as I said, they are a type of sound.

1:24

Um, in some of the waves in earthquakes are, you know,

1:28

compressional waves that, that are very much like sound waves.

1:30

Um, and just whenever there's something that, that moves in the earth,

1:35

it can generate those waves. And so usually in earthquakes,

1:38

or excuse me, in volcanic systems, that would be

1:41

magma moving underground and rising toward the surface.

1:44

So their precursory to an eruption, we see these earthquakes.

1:47

Um, it might be flowing, it might be, you know,

1:50

while the magmas flowing as opposed to cracking rock,

1:54

it might be gases moving in the system, all

1:56

of which just cause the ground to shake. Those can also though act into the air.

2:03

So, for example, when a volcano is actively erupting, it

2:05

of course generates sound. Sometimes we cannot see, um, erupting volcanoes.

2:11

They may be in very remote areas, so hearing them might be our best

2:15

indication of what they're doing. I study, um, some

2:20

of the volcanoes I study are submarine volcanoes.

2:22

They're under the oceans, so we don't know if they're

2:24

erupting at all because we can't see them, and there's nobody anywhere close to them.

2:28

We don't have instruments on most of them,

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but sound travels really, really effectively in the oceans.

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And so consequently, we can listen to, um,

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to these eruptions around from all over the oceans

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and just get a sense, even for as simple a question as

2:44

how often do they erupt? Where do they erupt, where are there active eruptions?

2:49

And what are those eruptions like? A lot of that we can get from sound.

2:53

- Brilliant. And the other thing that you've been doing some research into is, uh,

2:57

Taylor Swift concerts. Why, how, - Why, why and how is a really good question.

3:01

Um, not the direction I saw my research going at all.

3:05

Um, it actually starts not with something I did.

3:09

The story starts actually quite a bit of, um,

3:11

a while ago in 2011, during a football game,

3:16

American football game, right at, uh, in Seattle

3:20

during a very exciting play, um, where the, uh, um,

3:25

the, you know, the, the Seattle team Seahawks were playing

3:28

against the New Orleans Saints and the running back who we refer to as Beast Mode.

3:35

Marshawn Lynch broke through the defensive line,

3:38

scored a touchdown, and the crowd went so nuts

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that it was recorded by a local seismometer,

3:44

and we refer to that as the beast quake. So it was just the crowd being so excited.

3:49

This was noticed by a seismologist in Seattle at the time.

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And to be fair, there's a seismometer very close to that stadium.

3:59

So anytime something happens at the stadium,

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the seismometer does pick it up. And so fast forward to 2023, somebody, I,

4:07

I'm a moderator in a Facebook group for people

4:09

who are interested in earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.

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And, uh, somebody wrote in

4:14

and said, Hey, you know, is, is Taylor Swift concert making a beast quake right now?

4:19

You know, and I thought, well, that's an interesting question.

4:22

We haven't looked at concerts before, uh, at least I hadn't, turns out other people had.

4:27

So I went, you know, the, the data are freely available

4:29

to anybody who wants to look at them. So I went ahead and downloaded them and,

4:33

and boom, I mean, there was a huge signal from this concert.

4:37

Um, not only that, this was actually the second night she played two concerts.

4:41

And so I downloaded both of 'em. And what was immediately obvious is

4:45

that they were absolutely identical. The way the ground shook. It was a really interesting thing

4:50

because we don't really know why the ground, we haven't,

4:53

at least in the past, known why the ground shakes during these.

4:57

Is it the crowd jumping up and down? Is it the stadium resonating

5:01

because of their behavior in this case?

5:04

Was it the amplified music? Was it the bass?

5:06

Was it the drums? Um, so that was sort of the first piece of the puzzle is,

5:12

well, what's identical on the two nights? So I found that intriguing and kept looking,

5:17

- Presumably with the American football,

5:19

there's no amplification there, right? That's just the people.

5:22

- Correct. So we knew in that case, okay, that was obviously the crowd.

5:26

And truly one of the reasons that I started looking at this was there are some

5:30

bragging rights involved here. You know, who shook the ground more?

5:34

And when I first said, you know, wow,

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the ground's shaking way more in this concert than it did in

5:39

the beast quake, there was a little bit of, um,

5:43

unhappiness on the part of some of the football fans

5:46

who said, yeah, well, we didn't have amplified music,

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we didn't have all these electronics. Obviously that's, you know, that's,

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that's why the Taylor Swift concert was louder.

5:57

So that was a part of why I was interested in looking at it.

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Who wins, you know, and are they right? Um, yes and no.

6:04

So they're absolutely right that they didn't have amplified sound.

6:09

Um, but it turns out that when you dive into the signal a little bit more

6:12

for the concerts, there's really two different signals

6:15

that we're seeing in terms of the seismology. So when we look at earthquake waves or when we look,

6:21

'cause these are earthquake waves, right? These are seismic waves. The ground is shaking.

6:25

Um, we look at the different frequencies

6:28

at which the ground shakes. And what we could see really clearly during the concert was

6:32

that there was very, very, very strong low frequency shaking.

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And what I mean by that is somewhere between about one

6:39

and five or one and eight hertz, there was also a lot of signal

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that was much higher around, say, 30 to 80 hertz.

6:48

This particular in instrument is only recording data up

6:52

to 100 hertz. So really this is the very lowest frequencies

6:57

that humans can hear. You know, we, we say humans can hear 20 to 20,000.

7:02

It's probably more like 50 to 15, you know,

7:04

but this would be base, if anything

7:07

or, so it's not, we're not hearing Taylor Swift's voice,

7:12

but potentially, of course there are low frequency signals

7:14

that come in the bass and the drum, and of course in all the, all the, um, the music.

7:19

But again, we had these two really specific categories.

7:22

The thing that was really interesting right off the bat was

7:26

that if I looked at those very, very low frequencies,

7:29

they change their, they,

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they stay at a very constant frequency for about three

7:36

to four minutes at a time. And then it shifts to another low frequency, uh,

7:40

different frequency for three to four minutes at a time.

7:43

And that went of course, throughout the concert. So three to four minutes being the duration

7:48

of your average pop song, that was kind of a nice hint

7:50

that this had to do with the music. Further, if we look at the frequency at which we saw the

7:56

ground shaking and compared it to published tempos

8:00

of these songs, you could see that it matched identically,

8:04

which, what the tempo of the song was. So, you know, for example, there's the song ready for it,

8:10

which turns out to have, um, you know, the number

8:13

of beats per minute is somewhere around about 160 beats per minute.

8:18

And when we look at the frequency of ground shaking,

8:20

the strongest signal is about 2.6 hertz,

8:23

which is consistent with that rhythm. We've got other songs, you know, don't blame me,

8:28

136 beats per minute. And sure enough, the strongest signal we see is 2.2 hertz,

8:33

which is that consistent with that. So that's clearly the song.

8:38

Now that doesn't tell us if it's the crowd dancing

8:41

or if it's the music still.

8:44

However, we had two ways we could look at this.

8:49

There was a portion of each concert where Taylor Swift plays, um, what she calls surprise songs.

8:55

And at this point, the band leaves the stage

8:57

and it's just Taylor Swift with a guitar or a piano.

8:59

So we no longer have, you know, it, you know,

9:03

the, the bass and the drum. And in fact, she comes out

9:05

and says, welcome to the acoustic part of the evening.

9:09

So we know we're in the acoustic part where we simply have,

9:12

I mean, of course it's amplified, but it's not electronic.

9:16

And at that point, uh, we can test, right?

9:20

Is are those low frequencies still there? And in some cases, absolutely, yes.

9:25

If it's a danceable song that she is playing acoustically,

9:28

there are still low frequencies. There are other songs that are just not danceable songs.

9:34

There's, they're ballads, right? They're things that people may be sort of swaying

9:38

to or singing along. And whether the band is out there

9:42

or not, we just don't see those low frequencies.

9:46

Finally, there are some songs where we see a very dramatic change in the amplitude

9:51

of those low frequency signals. I was very lucky to be handed an enormous amount of data

9:57

by very enthusiastic concertgoers swifties.

10:00

It turns out we'll just do anything for Taylor Swift,

10:04

and particularly for Taylor Swift Science. And I was inundated

10:08

with emails from people saying, how can I help?

10:11

Do you want my videos? Do you want my photos?

10:13

And if I take these videos that these incredibly generous people gave to me,

10:18

I can see right when the seismic signal gets stronger,

10:22

I can see the crowd dancing more, dancing more dramatically.

10:25

You can see them tire over time and taper,

10:28

and sure enough, the amplitude drops and then another chorus happens

10:32

and it jumps into they jump again. And sure enough, the seismic signal cranks up.

10:37

So pretty clear sign that that's the crowd.

10:40

Now we also have this 30 to 80 hertz stuff, right,

10:45

that we think, again, with changes in character every three to four minutes.

10:49

So also likely related to this stuff,

10:53

when we go into the acoustic section, that stuff goes away.

10:57

So that makes it pretty clear that that is the music

11:00

that is the band. So back to that original question of is it the crowd?

11:05

Do, is there an amplified system? Yes, that amplified music is detected,

11:11

but the strongest signal we see is the crowd dancing.

11:14

So I, I would give it to the crowd right there. - Okay, brilliant. Sorry about that.

11:19

American football fans, it's, uh, - <laugh>.

11:22

Well, there is one other thing to point out though. When you have a rhythm like this, you dance

11:28

and sync everyone dances together.

11:31

When you have a crowd jumping randomly stochastic motion,

11:35

you don't have these synchronized, um, beats

11:38

that are pushed into the ground at the same time, right?

11:41

You've got really kind of chaotic motion. So no real surprise

11:46

that the amplitudes are weaker when people are

11:49

spontaneously jumping up and down. And in fact, there was a study by another,

11:53

a Seattle seismologist. Um, the first was by John Vidal who found the Beast Quake,

11:58

and then his colleague Steve Malone continued looking at football games

12:03

and noticed that there is a chant,

12:05

people will do defense, defense.

12:08

And at that point you actually see a very strong

12:12

rhythmic signal from the crowd. So I'm quite certain if you ask the football fans

12:17

to jump in sync as we do on that short one, that

12:20

that short little chant, I'm quite certain they could give the

12:24

swifties a run for their money. Okay. - Okay. I'm sort of picking up

12:27

that you're a American football fan, is that right? - I'm huge football fan. Right, okay. I love the sport.

12:33

- Okay. Um, but would you say that you now know Taylor Swift

12:37

music all too well? - Um, that's a fair statement.

12:41

Yeah, there's a few songs that I know extremely well

12:45

because they make really the, the most intriguing seismic signals.

12:49

Usually people have asked me, oh, were you a swifty before this?

12:52

And the answer is no. Am I a swifty?

12:55

Now I have an appreciation for her music,

12:57

but it's an unusual appreciation. I appreciate the wiggles that it makes.

13:01

I appreciate the seismograms. You know, I usually describe myself as much more of a sort

13:05

of punk and bluegrass type of gal, so I'm waiting

13:08

for other concerts to come to Lumen Field.

13:11

- Did you get many bluegrass acts playing in the arenas?

13:14

- Probably not at this big arena. I might, you know, have to see if I can find myself an

13:18

instrument to stick down to some smaller club. Um, but I will say that I am really interested to see how,

13:24

how different bands, uh, shape the ground.

13:28

And so with that in mind, um, I requested,

13:32

I wrote a proposal and my university was kind enough

13:34

to meet it, uh, to get tickets

13:37

to the Beyonce concert when she came to town.

13:39

So my students and I, shortly after the Taylor Swift concert, went back to the stadium

13:44

and saw Beyonce play. And that is another equally enthusiastic crowd,

13:51

equally fond of the Queen Bee.

13:55

So I was really intrigued to see which of those was gonna be stronger.

13:58

And what we found is that the strength

14:00

of the ground shaking, the dancing was much greater

14:05

during the Taylor Swift concert, but the strength of those high frequencies,

14:09

the music was much stronger during the Beyonce concert.

14:13

And so, you know, my hypothesis is that

14:16

it really is a question of how do you dance?

14:18

You dance very differently to pop music than you do to r and b.

14:23

There's a lot, you know, sort of more swaying to r and b

14:26

and less kind of pogo stick jumping up and down.

14:28

And the way it impacts the ground and couples in is quite different.

14:32

So I actually had a student who's doing her senior thesis on

14:35

studying the differences in these two. Uh, and you know, in concert seismology,

14:40

looking at the differences in how these acts impact the ground,

14:43

- That's a pretty good bit of research to be doing. - It's pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah. - Oh,

14:47

- Amazing. One of the really fun things about this has been sharing

14:51

with people that science is not just done in a lab,

14:54

and it's not just done at a computer that really,

14:57

anytime you're asking a question about how something behaves

15:00

and you're making observations, you're collecting data

15:02

and you're trying to answer questions, you're doing science.

15:05

And, and so I had so much data from Swifties

15:10

who did this at Con at the concerts,

15:13

and in fact, my co-authors on some

15:15

of my co-authors on my presentation at the American

15:18

Geophysical Union, um, were my 13-year-old neighbors

15:21

who gave me their data, who shared with me their photos and their videos.

15:25

And I was incredibly impressed with the detail

15:28

that they were able to provide about things. And you know, sometimes we make science so sterile

15:34

and we act as if it's distinct from the

15:37

normal things that we do. And it isn't, it doesn't have to be,

15:41

it can be just questions about things that interest us.

15:43

And I sort of like that demystification that this has

15:48

provided, and I hope that it allows some people to sort

15:51

of say, that's an interesting thing. I can do that. - Yeah. I I don't suppose Taylor West

15:54

been in touch with you at all. - She has not, no. She's got much bigger fish to fry, so,

16:00

no, I <laugh> I have not been in touch

16:02

with her. Okay. Well, - I I'm actually going to see her, uh, concert,

16:07

I believe it's called the Era Tour. I say that like, I don't know,

16:10

I have a 12-year-old daughter I've been talked to about it

16:13

at length for <inaudible>. Yes. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take your paper

16:18

with me and I'm gonna read it whilst I'm in

16:21

that concert. Perfect. - Yeah, that's perfect.

16:24

And you will know what rhythm to dance at <laugh>.

16:27

You'll know, you know, at what points to look around and,

16:30

and see if everybody's moving in sync together and Yeah.

16:34

You know, I'll tell you one other really fun thing.

16:36

At the Beyonce concert, she has a song where in the middle

16:39

of it, she does this, everybody go mute

16:43

and the whole audience stops and is still,

16:47

and we can see that in the data too. Oh, that's funny. So anytime there's something kind of cool

16:51

that happens, it's fun to look for, for us to look

16:54

and see, oh, what went on there? - I kind of feel like it's a shame for you that you've,

16:58

did you it on totally swift first because, you know, you've now got an option

17:02

to get free tickets for stuff, right. Or at least get tickets for stuff.

17:04

And that would've been an easy, a, a more difficult one

17:08

to get tickets for than others. - True. I did hear that the Rolling Stones are coming here,

17:12

and I think that would be kind of fun. Yeah. You know, 'cause that's more my era, to be honest.

17:16

Um, I mean, I saw the Rolling Stones in 1982,

17:20

so it might be interesting to see them 40 years later. <laugh>,

17:23

- You didn't have a, a seismometer with you in 1982. Presumably

17:27

- In 1982, I was sadly unaware the

17:29

seismometers were a thing. So yeah. Why

17:31

- Is there one outside that arena? What - It's not there for the arena.

17:35

Um, it happens that lumen field is built on a part

17:38

of Seattle that is, um, pretty mushy subsurface geology.

17:42

I mean, you wouldn't know it walking around, but geologically it's built on this sort

17:46

of alluvial deposits, these clays, these silts, these sands.

17:51

Um, and that's stuff that shakes a lot during earthquakes.

17:54

And so trying to understand how to build safely, um,

17:58

requires that we understand how the ground shakes.

18:01

So we have seismometers kind of all over the place just

18:04

to say, Hey, in these circumstances, here's

18:06

how much this area will shake. And then it helps, um, inform building codes.

18:11

So it happens that this is a good area to understand,

18:14

- And I don't know how we can arrange this, but I'd like to know what happens if Taylor

18:18

Swift scores a touchdown. - I mean, really what we're waiting

18:21

for is a Kansas City Chiefs to play here, because of course,

18:24

her sweetheart routinely scores touchdowns

18:27

or had we had a seismometer for the Super Bowl

18:30

because of course he scored touchdowns in that. Um, it does seem to kind of mesh everything together.

18:35

I kind of felt like the, the merging of football

18:38

and Taylor Swift stuff, we kind of kicked into gear way

18:41

before Travis Kelsey reached out to her. So I kind of feel like we deserve some credit

18:45

for discussing them in the same paper.

18:48

- I quite like the idea of physics world fans exchanging

18:51

science papers at the ERA'S tour, but whether it takes off in the way

18:55

that Taylor Swift fans exchanging friendship bracelets has

18:57

remains to be seen. Let's turn now to our new jingle.

19:01

And Professor Philip Moriarty,

19:04

- A professor of physics at the University of Nottingham, been at Nottingham for a very, very long time.

19:08

Almost 30 years, no, over 30 years now.

19:11

And, um, massive interest in the science

19:15

of the ultra small quantum mechanics. We work with scanning probe microscopes,

19:19

we manipulate individual atoms. But as a, um, hobby, I like to explore

19:25

the relationships between maths, physics and music.

19:29

Uh, so last year on the lateral thoughts page

19:32

of physics world, the back page of physics world,

19:34

which is always, um, uh, my contribution's notwithstanding,

19:38

is always very entertaining. And, uh, last year the

19:45

I contributed a lateral thoughts piece on the

19:50

writing a song, a heavy metal song called Shut Up

19:54

and Calculate, which took fundamental, constant

19:57

and fundamental relationships in physics.

20:00

Uh, encoded them in different riffs and in rhythms

20:03

and in lyrics of course, and wrote a song about that.

20:08

So that I guess, piqued physics, world's interest.

20:12

They got in touch and asked, what are I interested in doing something

20:16

for a new physics world podcast jingle?

20:19

And of course I said, yes, <laugh> jumped at the chance.

20:23

- Yeah. Brilliant. And so you have done that.

20:26

People listening to this podcast now will have heard at

20:29

least a part of that, the start of it. But can you ta just talk me through the process

20:33

of creating something like that? - So obviously it's for physics world, obviously we want

20:39

to have a strong connection to the, the, to

20:42

physical constants or physics in general and embedding them in the music.

20:46

So I thought long and hard about having played around

20:49

with different physical consonants, like planks constant

20:53

and the golden ratio in the past,

20:56

and made quite heavy rock and heavy metal songs outta those.

21:00

I thought, well, maybe metal's not gonna go down <laugh> as

21:04

as, as universally with the entire physics world audience

21:09

as other forms of music. Let's put it that way. We might have people running

21:13

to the Hills <laugh>. So let's, let's, let's think about, um, perhaps a more,

21:20

a slightly gentler genre and looked up when physics world started

21:25

and actually started in the eighties. So I thought, ah, okay, maybe we'll go

21:29

for some eighties synth pop. Everybody loves eighties synth pop,

21:32

everybody loves the Human League and Gary Newman

21:35

and all those wonderful bands from the eighties and all those wonderful earworms.

21:39

So that's, that was the starting position.

21:41

And then went, uh, online

21:44

and was absolutely delighted to find that all the samples

21:48

and all the type of synth sounds and sequences that were used by those bands in the eighties,

21:53

they're essentially completely free plugins now.

21:56

So things called Lin drums, for example, that

21:58

that particularly, you know, think about the start of, um,

22:02

uh, oh, that classic Human League song.

22:04

Uh, don't You Want Me, you think about the start start of

22:07

that, that drum sound, that sort of arpeggiated,

22:10

um, synth sound. All of that is those type of sounds are available online.

22:15

So that, that's the type of feel I was I was going for.

22:18

And that's the music side.

22:21

On the physics side, let's choose a number that's really

22:26

universal and let's choose a number that is dimensionless.

22:30

There's a dimension constant. So it's, it's independent of any unit, uh, we have in

22:37

that if an alien civilization were to get in contact

22:40

as alongside Pi and e, this might be one of the numbers they, they'd send us

22:45

to say, we're out here. So, and that number is the fine structure constant,

22:50

something called Alpha or indeed one over Alpha.

22:53

And that is a number that is roughly

22:56

137 ply.

23:00

For example, Wolfgang Ply was absolutely obsessed by

23:04

that number and spent an awful lot of life.

23:07

And for somebody who was very cynical, very caustic,

23:10

and in many ways incredibly rational, it's really interesting to see how Mystic he was about this.

23:16

Number 1, 3, 7. There's a book, um,

23:18

by a guy called Arthur Miller called 1 3 7,

23:21

which I was about to say, I recommend physics.

23:23

Anybody listening to this podcast gives it a read.

23:26

I, it's a good, it's a good read and it's an important read.

23:29

And it talks about Powerly and his relationship with young,

23:32

but there's an awful lot of woo and there's an awful lot of numerology in it.

23:36

I found it quite hard going at times, but it's certainly in terms

23:39

of an insight into ply, it's, it's great.

23:42

And as a wonderful coincidence, Parly the room

23:46

that he died in, the hospital room that he died in,

23:49

the number was 1 3 7.

23:53

Are you kidding? <laugh> play the Twilight Zone music

23:56

in the background, <laugh>. Um, so yeah, it doesn't get better than that.

24:00

You couldn't script that that would be kicked out

24:02

of a Hollywood blockbuster for being too unrealistic.

24:05

So, um, so he was absolutely fascinated by this number.

24:09

Feynman of course, said it was one of the great mysteries

24:12

of the universe, a magic number. We have no clue where it is, where it comes from,

24:16

and it still remains a mystery. Why is it 1 3 7?

24:19

And it's not quite exactly 1, 3, 7,

24:22

it's a little bit more than 1 3 7, or the inverse of this number is a little bit,

24:26

I should say is a little bit more than 1 3 7. So, but let's take that 1, 3, 7.

24:31

And what we'll do is we'll

24:35

map those numbers onto a scale, so us onto a musical scale.

24:40

So usually my go-to scale is something called the Harmonic

24:43

Miner, which is quite a spooky sounding scale,

24:46

which is used a lot in heavy metal, but I thought, let's not use the harmonic miner,

24:50

we'll use a natural miner. And then it's a question of, oh,

24:54

hopefully this will, will pick this up. Um, it's, it's a really simple question

25:00

of just mapping those numbers onto a scale.

25:02

So I'm gonna go, um, up the scale, we're gonna start

25:05

with zero, which is this note, then we're gonna go for one,

25:10

Two, okay, I'll play the scale

25:15

and then I'll count the numbers. So that's 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

25:27

And all we're doing is gonna take the, the, the note

25:30

that represents one, which is a d, the note

25:34

that represents three, which is an F, and the note that represents seven, which is a C.

25:40

And we get this, which hopefully

25:45

that's what started off this week's podcast.

25:49

And the good thing about, uh, notes like this is that they,

25:52

they wrap round, so it's essentially modular seven.

25:55

So, um, the first note of the scale,

25:57

which were liberal at zero was the same as the seventh.

26:00

So 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 7.

26:07

If I play them together, or the same, the same note in the,

26:10

in the sense that, uh, one is an octave above the other, so

26:17

to the same note, just separated by an octave.

26:21

So that means we can also play our, um,

26:26

scale up here or we can go up an octave

26:35

and it just wraps around. The numbers are circular in that sense,

26:38

which is very helpful in terms of composing stuff.

26:42

Um, so yeah, so that's the core,

26:46

that's the core of the, of the piece of music.

26:48

And that 1, 3 7 theme keeps repeating over and over. Um,

26:53

- Yeah, can I do right? So if it, if when you'd played that,

26:56

or did you already know this, but when, if you'd, when you played that it didn't sound good,

27:00

would you have just gone with it anyway or would you have

27:03

- No, no, I'd have chosen another scale. Okay. <laugh>. So in that sense,

27:07

it's a little bit arbitrary. Um, in terms of, of what we're doing.

27:12

There is a, there's obviously a link there between the maths

27:14

and the numbers and the, the physical concept. But it does depend on which scale we choose,

27:19

at least in this case, it is a dimensionless constant.

27:22

So at least there aren't units to worry about. 'cause you could argue you take one of these numbers,

27:26

just change the unit, you get a completely different number.

27:28

But, um, again, if it were an alien civilization getting in

27:32

contact, you know, that kind of combination of notes

27:36

or that relationship between the notes is fixed at least.

27:39

So you, you never know <laugh>, - We'll go back to the music in a minute,

27:42

but this alien civilization getting in touch with this.

27:45

If we, if we just said to them 1, 3, 7 or played them those notes, why would they know that?

27:50

- Well, it's a question of the relationship

27:53

between the frequencies of those notes. So if they could work back, I guess, of course we have,

27:58

we're very used in Western culture to thinking

28:01

of particular, um, scales.

28:04

So it's a question of what the,

28:06

that alien culture might have developed in terms

28:08

of musical scales. Would it be exactly obvious that it was 1 3 7? Perhaps not.

28:13

Could they just send us those numbers 1, 3, 7, just

28:18

as duh duh duh duh duh or whatever.

28:22

It's just as simple tones. We might, um, understand that a little bit, um, more easily.

28:28

Having said that, uh, a jingle

28:31

that comprised just the same tone repeated 1, 3, 7 times

28:35

for five minutes might not be the most interesting thing

28:37

to listen to <laugh>. - No, absolutely not.

28:41

But, uh, what you have done is change it up a bit

28:44

and there's something which at least you've described

28:47

as a squelchy phasey effect. Now, last time we spoke was a long time ago,

28:51

and, um, this regular listeners in the podcast will remember

28:55

that we went off on one about rush at one,

28:58

- We did <laugh>. - Um, is there any influence of rush in this at all, you

29:04

- Think? Well, Yeah,

29:07

there's always an influence of rush somewhere. So the Fay the Fay thing, so one

29:11

of Russia's classic songs is called something called Spirit of Radio.

29:14

And that starts off with a, a very much f flanged phased guitar motif that that is,

29:20

is spinning, sort of circling and spinning around, which is, um, and very looped

29:26

and very repetitive, and it's somewhat the same idea.

29:29

There's always a bit of a rush influence somewhere.

29:31

But that particular, um, sound that phased,

29:36

sweeping sound is, uh,

29:39

taken directly from a simulation of

29:44

the evolution of, uh, wave function

29:48

in the particle in a box model.

29:50

The infinite potential, well that everybody does as a physics undergrad at least four times over

29:55

and, um, took the output from that simulation

29:59

and transpose it into the audio range. So what you're hearing is a real simulation

30:04

and the dynamics of that evolving quantum state translated into sound.

30:20

- That's a lovely thing. Um, you've, there's also a link to 1984.

30:25

- The choice of the musical genre was

30:27

definitely informed by the eighties. And, um, you know,

30:30

it's 20, 24, 40 years ago the Nobel Prize was awarded.

30:35

Um, in terms of, um, fundamental, um,

30:39

coupling constants, let's, let's put it that way in terms

30:42

of the weak force, but actually 1 3 7, the,

30:45

the fine structure constant, I keep saying 1 3 7,

30:49

it's actually one over 1 3 7 or approximately one over 1 3 7 is the actual

30:53

fine structure constant. What that is, is a measure of the coupling

30:57

of charged particles with the electromagnetic field.

31:00

And um, the other thing that's buried in there

31:04

is some bongos. And you, if you listen carefully, you can hear the bongos.

31:09

I hope for a physics audience that I don't have

31:12

to explain a camera cameo periods of, of bongos <laugh>.

31:16

But if you do, if you need, if you need some more hints,

31:18

then perhaps go go along to Oppenheim

31:20

or find where Oppenheimer is playing or somehow download it

31:23

or stream it and um, watch it again and,

31:25

and look out for the bongos. Um, and of course there is another meta link there in

31:32

that, that particular physicist who was particularly famous

31:35

for playing the bongos won the Nobel Prize

31:37

for Electrodynamics quantum electrodynamics.

31:40

And this 1 3 7 alpha,

31:43

the fine structure constant is absolutely at the core

31:45

of quantum electrodynamics and fineman diagrams, oh, sorry,

31:49

- <laugh>, give ruined it now everyone.

31:52

- I've ruined it. - <laugh>. So, okay, that's, that's everything I think up

31:57

to a certain point in the jingle. Then we're starting to get some drums. Hi hats.

32:03

- Oh yeah, we are, um, the open hi hats are sort

32:06

of syncopated at one point. And again, that's happening on the first

32:10

third, seventh beat. There's actually, there's 16th for the drummers out there,

32:14

there's 16th node. So it's first, so imagine it does two sets of eight notes,

32:19

and on each set of eight notes, you get a one, three

32:21

and a seven that you accent.

32:24

Um, so 1, 3, 7, 1 3, 7, 1 3 7, et cetera.

32:27

So yeah, that was an easy one to do. And being a big rush

32:30

and Neil Pert fan, that's the type of thing

32:32

that Neil Pert used to do a lot, including a song called YYZ, which is most cool

32:37

for YYZ translated to drums. Oh,

32:39

- Lovely. Um, then we have, well from about one 13.

32:47

- Okay, so this is one over 1 37

32:50

and that's a different wave, but it's exactly the same idea,

32:52

same scale, just matching the, the notes.

32:54

So it's like 0.00729.

32:58

I'm trying to remember this off the top of my head again.

33:00

So matching those, and that's a bit funkier and that's driven by the bass dominated

33:05

by the music rather than the physics, I would say.

33:09

Although those notes are matched to the inverse of the of

33:13

of 1 3 7, the, the rhythm has nothing to do with that.

33:18

The rhythm, that sort of driving rhythm at that point is

33:20

because I wanted to lift the song a little bit. There's something that kicks in, I can't remember,

33:25

it's about midway through, I dunno, two, two minute,

33:27

two minute 30 mark, something like that, which is called a shepherd scale.

33:31

And this is, this is amazing. It's, um, an audio equivalent essentially

33:36

of those Escher paintings, you know, the Escher paintings

33:38

with the, the monks walking up the, the staircase

33:42

and the, the walking up. But then they're also walking down

33:45

and it's like this infinite loop or indeed penals Roger Penals on his father, um,

33:50

had these infinite staircases which inspired

33:53

that Escher painting apparently. Um, so I, there's an audio equivalent of

33:59

that called the Shepherd Scale, whereby you,

34:02

you have an octave rising and as it's rising its volume is also increasing,

34:07

but then you also have another octave, or more than one octave, um,

34:13

whereby the notes are, um, falling in volume

34:17

as the pitch goes up and you get this interplay of rising notes, um,

34:23

with the volume increasing and also another set of notes

34:27

with which are rising in pitch, but their volume is decreasing.

34:31

And the combined experience is that you hear this note

34:36

that seems to be rising and rising and rising

34:39

and never stops. So rising to infinity

34:41

and physicists love dealing with infinities.

34:44

Every furry interval is full of infinities.

34:46

So, um, I thought again, that was a, a nice, um,

34:50

parallel with, uh, physics. - Yeah, I mean it's a funny old thing, the brain, isn't it

34:55

that something that isn't happening. We hear it as if it is,

34:59

- It is, there are some fantastic examples of how

35:03

what we perceive is much more than just the physics

35:06

of the notes and the furrier coefficients

35:08

and the, the, the, the furrier components of the sound.

35:12

The IE the way that a physicist would treated a great deal

35:16

of it is, is due to our psychology and her perception.

35:19

And there are some really wonderful examples at, um,

35:22

the Franklin Institute, uh, website in, uh,

35:27

Franklin Institute is in Philadelphia. It's a science museum.

35:30

And let's see if these are gonna work. 'cause I think these are amazing in terms of,

35:35

I'm gonna play you something now, Andrew, um,

35:38

and tell me what you think it is, - Lady.

35:43

- Any idea what that was? - No, not a clue.

35:45

- Okay, let's try it again. I'll play it one more time,

35:50

- Lady. - Now you're gonna hear what the actual message was followed

35:55

by exactly the same piece of garbled audio

35:59

and suddenly all will become clear. - There's coffee on that seat. - Whoa.

36:05

- And what this goes to show is just how important prior information is in terms of

36:10

how we perceive and how we interpret information for our senses.

36:15

There's another interesting analog here.

36:18

We talked before Andrew, about machine learning and training

36:22

and just the incredible advances in artificial intelligence

36:25

and of course chat. GPT-4 O was released just a couple of days ago.

36:30

And again, that's about training

36:33

and network, a neural network in that case,

36:35

an artificial neural network rather than the organic neural

36:38

network between our ears. But it is about prior information, how it learns.

36:43

And here we see exactly that in terms of our brains

36:46

working out interpreting data in terms of prior information,

36:51

the training set essentially that we've been given.

36:54

Mm. One more example. - Okay, brilliant. No,

37:02

absolutely no idea. Again, go on enlighten me. The

37:05

- Constitution center is at the next stop. - Whoa. It's just brilliant, isn't it?

37:11

But let's just go back to the music a second

37:14

because at the end we get the violins.

37:33

- Yeah. So the violins, again are just repeating

37:36

that 1, 3, 7 idea. Um, and then they fade out

37:42

and are replaced by, again, coming back

37:46

to the science first looping round to where we almost,

37:48

where we started coming back to the sort of science fiction scenario

37:51

where there's an alien civilization trying to get in contact with us <laugh>.

37:54

And again, it's a very heavily affected bass guitar playing

37:59

harmonics based on those 1 3 7 pitches.

38:03

And that fades out to, uh, infinity as it were.

38:09

- What a lovely thing it is. Um, thank you so much for doing it.

38:12

I, I have to ask this question, right, because you, you have the violins there.

38:17

Um, would you all be interested in those violins

38:20

being actual violins? - Oh, I would love that. Oh, that'd be amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

38:24

Okay. Because they're obviously sampled and, um, there's a lot I'll,

38:29

I'll be writing a blog post about this

38:31

and there are a number of free plugins

38:33

and there are a number of, um, effects that I use a lot,

38:36

including those by somebody called, I hope I get the pronunciation.

38:40

I garant Luff who, uh, it's amazing, these incredible

38:45

effects that have been developed as plugins for the,

38:47

the digital audio workspaces. And I use something called Reaper

38:50

and for completely for free. It's amazing. Other places would charge hundreds

38:54

if not thousands for this. And this guy's just decided to put them online.

38:58

Uh, it's, it's, it's really nice in terms

39:01

of the music community, just what, what level

39:04

of community there is and how, you know, the, the level of interaction there is.

39:08

- It is a very lovely thing. And what I, i dunno whether it's gonna be possible or not,

39:13

but I am happily married to a rather wonderful violinist.

39:17

- Oh my. Oh, that would be amazing. So,

39:20

- Yeah, I wonder what would you want from

39:23

that violinist if we were going to - Oh, I can, so what I can do is just send a track

39:26

with just exactly the notes that are required

39:28

and stripped of everything else. Okay. That would be great. And then I could mix it back in.

39:33

That would be great. Yeah. Oh wow. Let's try that. - Thank you. Let's try that.

39:51

- In terms of stringed instruments, that's quantum mechanics 1 0 1, that's

39:55

where we start particle in a box. It's resonances on a string.

39:58

You've got something that's clamped at both ends. Freedom.

40:00

You've got nodes at both ends. What standing waves conform. It's all physics

40:06

- <laugh>. It's, it's, it's a lovely thing, isn't it?

40:08

Well, I, I am wondering whether,

40:10

because, you know, we've got this lovely piece of music now,

40:14

um, it, it's gonna be used in the podcast in various different ways.

40:19

It is the jingle at the start. We're gonna bring it in occasionally within

40:24

the podcast as well. But I wonder whether we might give listeners a treat

40:30

and play one of your other pieces of music that has to do

40:33

with physics on this particular - Episode.

40:35

Oh, that, that would be great. Thank you. Yes, I can certainly, yeah. That, that would be wonderful.

40:39

Thank you, <laugh>. - Well hopefully that'll be thanking

40:43

'cause And, uh, which one should we play - Then?

40:46

Oh, we, we play something very metal called Shut Up and Calculate if <laugh>, let's see

40:50

how that goes down <laugh>. It's slightly different genre rise to the jingle.

40:55

- Amazing. Well, hopefully they won't run for their lives.

40:58

And here we go. - The

43:28

the, - In this way we see

44:36

that such a drastic departure from ordinary ideas

44:40

as the assumption of superposition relationships

44:42

between the states is possible only on account

44:46

of the recognition of the importance of the disturbance upon observation

44:50

and of the con indeterminacy

44:53

and the result of the observation. When an observation is made on atomic systems

44:58

that is in given state in general,

45:01

the result will not be determinate.

45:20

- We'll, - That's shut up and calculate by Philip Moriarty.

46:11

And you're listening to the Physics World Stories podcast.

46:14

Thank you so much to Jackie and Philip for talking to me.

46:17

And thank you very much indeed to Jenny g Lester

46:20

for providing the violin for our new jingle,

46:23

which I hope you as listeners are enjoying.

46:29

We'll be back next month with something else from this wonderful world of physics

46:33

and thank you very much for listening.