BS: The Hummer in Astro-land

Subject: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Benjamin
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 03:24 PM

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm suppose to provide the link or just cut and paste here, but here is the link. If anyone would like to take the time to cut and paste, I'll have no argument about it!

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: jimmyt
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 03:51 PM

SOrry Benjamin..........for a minute there, I thought Monica Lewinsky had moved to Houston, Texas.   jimmyt

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 05:43 PM

Thought that Astroboy had gotten hisself an SUV.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Bassic
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 07:34 PM

As its humming in Bflat, could it be usefull to Brass Bands as a tuning reference?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 08:10 PM

I assume this is the article about the black hole? If so it is humming at a B-flat that is many octaves below the range of human hearing. I don't know if it truly qualifies as a Bflt if it cannot be heard by musicians, but the cycles per second are correct (yes, it hertz, but it hertz right!)

So brass bands aren't likely to be able to tune up to it.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Bassic
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 08:47 PM

If its that low they should be tuning DOWN to it anyway! I am sure the technology exists to produce a hand held device that can read the signal and use it as a reference, like they do with atomic clocks etc. The esential future toy for gadget hungry muso teckies?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Benjamin
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 12:23 AM

Personally, I often wish that brass bands would play so low that I can't hear them.
BMW

Brass bands are very much in their place. Out doors and many miles away. - Sir Thomas Beecham

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Pooka
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 01:49 AM

Har har har!! Dammit, here I've been awa' from this 'Cat for a long long time & then I saw this article (well, the AP version) & thought Ah HA! I'll post this on Mudcat. And of course yez beat me to it.

Well, no matter. I love it. B flat, albeit 57 octaves below middle C. See that? -- the Music of the Spheres is the Low Whistle. Hoo hah :)

Here (since cut/paste is invited above by the Threadmaker) is the AP article. Note the last paragraph. The Universe may sing many different songs. (Hi, Amos. :)


Low Note From A Celestial Object
Astronomers Detect Black Hole's Song

September 10, 2003
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The voice of a black hole is a deep, deep bass, 57 octaves below middle C and far beyond the hearing range of humans. The Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected sound waves for the first time from a cluster of galaxies 250 million light years away.

Astronomers at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England, discovered the sound waves while analyzing the Chandra images of the Perseus cluster, an immense grouping of galaxies held in formation by the powerful tug of a supermassive black hole. The sound waves were detected passing through superheated gases in the cluster of galaxies.

Andy Fabian, a professor at the Institute of Astronomy, said that a close study of the fine detail collected by Chandra shows ripples in the X-ray pattern that are caused by sound waves excited by the energy from the black hole.

He said the sound produced by the black hole is a B flat, the same pitch as a key near middle C on the piano. But the song of the Perseus black hole is 57 octaves below that middle C. This is a tone frequency more than a million, billion times deeper than the limits of the human ear, said Fabian.

The voice of the black hole is detected by analyzing the pattern of X-rays coming from superheated gases in the Perseus galactic cluster, said Fabian.

Squeezed by the gravitational pull of the black hole and the galaxies in the cluster, gases are heated to 50 million degrees, hot enough to generate X-rays. A surge of sound waves adds heat energy, causing a slight change in the pattern of X-rays.

In effect, he said, the sound waves cause bright and dark emissions of X-rays moving in rings away from the black hole center like ripples on the surface of a pool.

"A three-dimensional analogy is when a child takes a straw and blows into a glass of water, producing a sequence of bubbles," said Fabian. "That is like a sequence of sound waves."

Fabian said that the discovery is prompting astronomers to look for telltale ripples in the superheated gas around other black holes.

It is possible, he said, that other galactic clusters are singing in other tones.

"We would expect that every cluster and group of galaxies has its own note," said Fabian. "So if you look at the whole universe, there are many tunes being played."

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Hrothgar
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 06:02 AM

How does sound get out of a black hole?

My understanding of a black hole is a collapsed star whose gravitational pull is so strong that anything near it is sucked in. The stuff getting sucked in is travelling at very high speeds. If sound travels by the vibration of matter (such as air), how does it manage to get out of the hole?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Bassic
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 06:10 AM

........and it came to pass that the ancient Earth grew tired. All its people had to fly away to the far reaches of the universe to start life in other places. In order for the universe to remain in harmony each person was sent to a galaxy that they had a natural empathy for. "B flat" people went to one place, "A" people went to another, D people to yet another. There was even a place for GHB pipers who went to a slightly wobbly galaxy on the edge of the universe that was G# and a bit! Accordion and Melodeon players were sent to a part of the 4th dimension, which only appears for 10 minutes every millenium. Rappers wandered tuneless in space/time, endlessly searching for the "key" to life.....................................

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 08:36 AM

Transpose it all upwards a tad and let's here what the Universe has to sing about.

But how...what...to what does the Universe tune? Is there some cosmic gutbucket everything tunes to? And if so, are we simply out of tune -- the tiples of the Universe?

A whole new area of speculation and investigation has opened!

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 08:56 AM

How can we be sure it's a B flat and not an A sharp? That's an entirely different message!!!

Something to think about.........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 09:21 AM

Maybe THIS is the interstellar communication we've been looking for with SETI.

Maybe the sound does not go OUT, but IN. Maybe this one is sucking up all the Bb's of the universe, and others are sucking up other pitches, and that's where all our songs end up. (New Mudcat story, SONGSUCKER?)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 09:25 AM

Is that why my trumpet gets out of tune, then?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 10:07 AM

Songsuckers were invented in Mudcat Fiction as one of the enemy in the Mudcat Enterprise series, but a focused story about them is in order. In that case one of them was defeated by pummeling it with schmaltzy music until it went crazy -- Volare, I believe it was.
Highly effective, and saved the life of a winsome lass, IIRC...

I don't see why the presence of a black hole shouldn't set up some kind of oscillation in the surrounding space, although how they reckon sound waves travel through the near vacuum of inter-system space is certainly a question.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Pooka
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 10:53 AM

The AP article said "... The sound waves were detected passing through superheated gases..." Whether the gas-passthrough paradigm answers Mr 'Spaw's sharp vs. flatulence question, I'm not sure. But Amos, isn't it known that a black hole DOES indeed create, like, major oscillations in the surrounding spacetime?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 05:34 PM

I tried to figure out what B flat 57 octaves below middle C would be in terms of cycles per second (Herz). Since B flat a step below middle C is 466 Hz and the next lowest B flat is 233 Hz (466 X .5), then 116.5 Hz etc., it's just a matter of performing the frequency-halving operation 57 times, right? My calculator won't express a number that low in anything other than scientific notation. As near as I can figure, by going as far as the calculator would go and then doing some rounding and multiplication, it's something in the neighborhood of one cycle every billion years! How in the hell did the scientists even detect such a low frequency wave, much less determine its frequency accurately enough to say that it's a B flat note?

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 05:41 PM

I dunno, guys. The mysteries of this universe are bad enough by themselves bit when they get pureed by scientists and then half-baked by newspapermen they become wholly incomprehensible!! :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Pooka
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 03:22 AM

LOL! Yes indeed. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 06:53 AM

It took all my fingers and toes, but unless I goofed somewhere, that works out to approximately 3.5527 x 10^-15 Hz. Or .00000000000000035527 cycles per second. It would take you 89,255,129 years, 7 months, 6 hours, an some odd minutes to hear it go through a whole cycle, provided you could hear it. I wonder how they detected this thing.   

Also, it would require a guitar with a mighty long neck. . . .

I once worked out the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight. It comes out to 1,802,526,566,400.

I'm not dangerous—really!

Don Firth
It's just that my wife is out of town and it's a slow night at the skunk works.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 08:35 AM

When I was 15 or 16, I worked out (just for my own satisfaction) how much plutonium or uranium would be needed to make a gun-type fission weapon. Years later, when the (approximate) amount was unclassified, I found that what I'd done working from data in books from local public library was less than a half a kilogram off from the "actual" amount. Scary.

But this big ol' hole, I have some questions about it. If it's producing a B-flat note as it sucks things into it, what note is it making on the other side, where the stuff is spit out? Could we vary its sound by controlling the spacetime oscillations and thereby make it into a rather large accordion or banjo? And the sound it makes -- is this what is meant when astroguys talk about the "blues event horizon"?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Pooka
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 04:37 PM

Whoa!! Goooood questions! :) "...rather large accordion..." HEE HEE!!
The note on the side - yeah! The "white hole" to the next-door universe. Good one, Rapaire. Some kind of an inverse note. I have NO idea what that means.

Re how they detected all this: supposedly via "sound wave" ripples in the galactic gas. / But yeah: I've always wondered about the sound effects in all the movie & TV scenes of mighty battles in the vacuum of space. Phaser blasts, explosions, crashes, engines, whooshing spacecraft, etc. Hm.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 05:54 PM

The answer, dear Pook, is that they record them from inside the space ship, where the synthetic atmosphere makes sound possible. How they know what the sounds should sound like once there is a matter of conjecture -- perhaps quantum displacement at work?

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: LadyJean
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 09:49 PM

Well I'll be damned!

The music of the spheres, or the absence of spheres.

I can't wait for the Enterprise crew to pass a singing wormhole.

I wonder who will be the first singer to record with a black hole.

Gives a whole new meaning to Music from the Hearts Of Space.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 01:46 AM

Rapaire, it's Greenwich Mean Tune, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 10:44 AM

Now just a minute...

If the universe is a giant orchestra made up of lots of seperate instruments, each one making a continuous non-stop note simultaneously,

just what sort of music is that like?

:-)

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Oaklet
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 01:13 PM

The note is about 755mm below middle c on the standard stave. It is really quite difficult to read when written like that, especially when part of a fast reel or jig.

And it takes up a lot of paper.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 01:20 PM

Maybe it is like a tapestry -- looked at from the back it's all seams and dangles and loose ends; turn it over and you're grooving on the coherent beauty. Similarly. we may be so close in on the osund thing that we see the blatts, but shifting perspective might reveal cosmic melodies intertwined in sweet harmonies, a vision of orchestration we can only guess at.

Sheeshe, I'm sounding like a Baptist!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Oaklet
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 07:14 PM

Amos, that was lovely but what in the name of all-that's-holy, are you on about?   9.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 10:43 PM

Oaklet,

The beauty of the music of the spheres only appears to he who has ears to hear it....

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 04:45 AM

Like an Irish Session... :-)

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 10:14 AM

I've been working on the transposition of the B-flat and what it sounds like on the other side of the Big Black Hole. Best I can come with is that it's in alto clef, and the note is H# (there's a multidimensional problem here, in that in passing through the Blues Event Horizon of within the Big Black Hole the note becomes "twisted", sort of Klein Bottle-ish, but you can do the math of it yourself and see what I mean).

And I've HEARD the music of spheres, the notes generated by all the black holes and wormholes and colliding galaxies and all that stuff. You want to know what it sound like, since each one is producing just one note? I'll tell ya what it sounds like. It sound like a humungeous orchestra tuning up, that's what it sounds like, and all of the instruments are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of tune. Now you know: the Universe is out of whack, Time is out of joint, and Bush is in the White House. At least, Bush doesn't play saxophone.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Oaklet
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 11:30 AM

I think that the music of the spheres is a jolly good thing. I have heard it on a Tuesday in the Coach and Horses in Barton-without-the-hyphens, where it often mistakenly referred to a the music of the bollocks. But what do they know?

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:18 PM

Oaklet raises an important metaphysical point: one man's spheres are another man's bollocks. Good thing to remember, eh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 01:47 PM

Amos, I hope it all works out well for you. Re-membering your bollocks, and you never said a word about about the upcoming surgery! Don't forget that we're all...I almost said "pulling for you," but that's not appropriate...we all hope that all goes well.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Oaklet
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 01:53 PM

That goes for me too, Amos. I hope that everthing works out. Let us know what happens.

Subject: RE: BS: The Hummer in Astro-land
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 02:11 PM

And it will be a member in good standing, too!