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The sound of science: Higgs boson data turned into music at CERN
It is the musical representation of some of the most cutting edge experiments in the world.
Yet when seven physicists from CERN created a composition based on measurements from inside the Large Hadron Collider the results were surprisingly traditional, with even a hint of baroque.
In a video released to mark the 60th anniversary of the Swiss institute, the scientists are shown playing harps and violins beside the huge particle accelerator in which the Higgs boson was discovered last year.
The music is based on the translation of scientific data collected by the four main Large Hadron Collider experiments in a process known as sonification.
Sonfication works by assigning a musical note to each measurement created by experiments, so that the same data is presented as a musical score.
It is the brainchild of Domenico Vicinanza, the arts and manager at the European education network GEANT.
“When I wrote this piece, I hoped it would be be a metaphor for scientific collaboration; to demonstrate the vast and incredible effort these projects represent - often between hundreds of people across many different continents,” he said.
“Networks are the invisible glue that keeps data and collaboration working together, enabling scientists to exchange measurements, tools and experiences wherever they are.
“And just as the magic happens when the instruments are playing together: the music played by each single players is the foundation for the others.
“Each give strength to all the other, new light and new colours are appearing. Exactly the same process that occurs every day when people collaborate over scientific research.”
In Sonification, intervals between values in the original data set are mapped as the interval between notes in the melody. The same numerical value was associated to the same note. As the values increased or decreased, the pitch of the notes grows or diminishes accordingly.
In this way any regularity in the scientific data can be naturally mapped to the melody.
The measurements included Higgs boson data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments, a lead ion collision from 2010, and data from the first observation of a heavy-flavored spin-3 particle that was seen in July.
Video: The sound of science: Higgs boson data turned into music at CERN - Telegraph
It is the musical representation of some of the most cutting edge experiments in the world.
Yet when seven physicists from CERN created a composition based on measurements from inside the Large Hadron Collider the results were surprisingly traditional, with even a hint of baroque.
In a video released to mark the 60th anniversary of the Swiss institute, the scientists are shown playing harps and violins beside the huge particle accelerator in which the Higgs boson was discovered last year.
The music is based on the translation of scientific data collected by the four main Large Hadron Collider experiments in a process known as sonification.
Sonfication works by assigning a musical note to each measurement created by experiments, so that the same data is presented as a musical score.
It is the brainchild of Domenico Vicinanza, the arts and manager at the European education network GEANT.
“When I wrote this piece, I hoped it would be be a metaphor for scientific collaboration; to demonstrate the vast and incredible effort these projects represent - often between hundreds of people across many different continents,” he said.
“Networks are the invisible glue that keeps data and collaboration working together, enabling scientists to exchange measurements, tools and experiences wherever they are.
“And just as the magic happens when the instruments are playing together: the music played by each single players is the foundation for the others.
“Each give strength to all the other, new light and new colours are appearing. Exactly the same process that occurs every day when people collaborate over scientific research.”
In Sonification, intervals between values in the original data set are mapped as the interval between notes in the melody. The same numerical value was associated to the same note. As the values increased or decreased, the pitch of the notes grows or diminishes accordingly.
In this way any regularity in the scientific data can be naturally mapped to the melody.
The measurements included Higgs boson data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments, a lead ion collision from 2010, and data from the first observation of a heavy-flavored spin-3 particle that was seen in July.
Video: The sound of science: Higgs boson data turned into music at CERN - Telegraph
