What DO Physicists Think About?

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 01:15 PM

The difference between how a layman thinks and a physicist thinks can sometimes be hilarious. Ken Evenson has kept a newspaper editorial. Evanson and crew in their earlier work on the speed of light did a preliminary experiment and got a better value, which analysis of the possible errors indicated it was good to + or - 2 meters per second (out of 299792458 m/s). The newspaper editor asked, why all this ballyhoe about NBS's speed of light. Why don't they just shut up until they get it right.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 01:41 PM

Glad you're smiling again Bruce. Sometimes it takes a little humor and fun to get to know people here at the 'Cat. I never intended my "whopper" to get under anyone's skin - I thought it as transparent as glass.

I DO love physics. I could'a been a contenda too, but my family consisted of doctors and teachers so I took up music to sooth my logic circuits.

I grew up following as much of the sciences as I could while avoiding medicine.

My uncle, Dr. Maurice Adam, was the chief of thoractic's at Baylor here and his wife a pediatrician.

My grandmother was a fifty plus year veteran teacher of foreign languages.

My brother, Stephen West, went on to write much of the code that put us on the moon and was one of the granddaddies of EDI.

My mother dated guys like Kirtley Mather (Prof. Emeritus, Harvard), Alan Mannion (Main Currents in Modern Thought) and "Freznel" (in joke) AND Bolsey and the beat generation crew - Jack and Neal. I was surrounded by intellect from the best of all possible worlds. If I had a question, there was someone I could find to answer it or point me in the right direction.

I used to mess with my homemade radios, telescopes and Theremin's. I helped my brother build a tic-tac-toe logic board game (out of tubes) in the late 50's. I have the "jargon" down because I have to tranlate for children. I hate to let a question go by unanswered in some basic fashion, or at least, point 'em to the fishin' hole.

I kicked off my musical road at five and haven't stopped since. I did it to have my own little niche. I surprised my family with my meager talent and they (to their credit) let me go to it.

Now, I have a question for you:

Maxwell vs. Fermi . . . who wins?

Great to learn a little about you . Hope it doesn't end here.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 03:41 PM

Families are funny things. Progeny follow father in some families for generations and in others what father did was the last thing any of his progeny would think of doing. I even met a Rothschild who was a scientist, doubtlessly the black sheep of the family. (Oh, no, we never mention him)

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 04:07 PM

A further tidbit. At NBS GS 16 and above usually got called Doctor, everyone was on a first name basis. The ones that wore ties were the administrators, who working scientist avoided, because that always had some harebrained idea they wanted you to work on. (We usually had a sport coat and tie on a rack in the office in case we had to go out to lunch with a visiting fireman. The more contentious sent them to the cleaners every year or two, used or not. The big celebration each year was Secretary Day, when we would take her to a fancy restuarant and give her some presents to make up for all the crap she had to handle from 21 Ph. Ds, 2 MS, a machinist and data compiler.

We tried to do it cheap one year when the boss was on travel and just made hot dogs on a hibatchi in one of the labs, but the smoke detectors were too sensitive and we soon had a big crew of unhappy firemen there.

Actually I didn't want my work and degree to influence any one outside of work, and it was a moderately well kept secret until after I retired, and I still have friends that don't know that, so please don't tell.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 05:34 PM

**BG** NOW ya have me laughin' in sympathy.

When Control Data won SBC from IBM it was decided a party was in order. The Houston office was full of your "black ties" and the cadre of coders wanted no part of them at the fete. No one could come up with a legitimate reason to exclude them and my brother (now an Control Data employee) voiced his concerns to me a few days before the event. He was in charge of the thing and right in the middle of it all. He was the chief SA there. I suggested a "Cut Tie" party. Everyone had to have a tie and it was to be cut off after arrival to gain entry. A memo was sent out to all the brass in the traditional manner except it was delivered by hand AFTER the party started and timed and dated that morning (and people wonder how memos get "lost" that get them fired).

It was a real treat watching the brass burn on this one. When the honcho put up too much of a snit, I'd hand them a 3 inch wide monster with polka dots in exchange for their Countess Mara originals (yes, I kept the ties) because the clincher was ALL the cut ties had to be knotted together and "flown" from the flagstaff out front for 7 days. Funny thing, none of the ties were reclaimed. I wonder why?

And, I promise not to tell a soul. *G*

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 06:16 PM

Lucky CDC. IBM, as is well known, stood for I've Been Moved. Their people somtimes got moved to places they liked but knew it was only temporary.

Gray Rooseter, I think that since we stopped fighting the MUDCATTER'S have gotten bored with us. Got any ideas for a new one? Make it too subtle for me.

This physicist has started to think about when does a chord become a non chord. For simple major CEG we have 264, 330, and 396 Hz for the frequencies. Play it short and all the notes become a distribution of frequencies as dictated by reciprocal spreading. [EE's derive it one way, but much more dirct and extremely simple is getting it from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle] How short a time do we have to cut it to in order to make it unrecognizable as a chord?

Fortunately the ear hears on a logarithmic rather than a linear scale or all of our high notes would make muddy chords. I wonder whether Adam and Eve originally had linear ears, and evolution changed that as music developed. The Bible does't say that the serpent sang or played tunes to charm Eve. Just think, if he did that and Eve had a linear ear, we'd still be in the Garden of Eden, and as long as we didn't eat the apples we could stay there. I can't guess whether we'd have songs or music, though. We wouldn't have to worry about the universe disappearing, the devil take it, cause we wouldn't be in it.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 08:23 PM

Yeah, the folkies don't want standard regression -- they want to see scientists draw blood!! It assuages their guilt... :>}<

Just kidding. Bruce, it sounds like your approaching Keeley's resonant center there -- he had people buffaloed into believing he had tapped into an endless source of free energy using a bunch of resonant formulae obfuscated by Victorian musical nomenclature. Sounded so desireable until you tried to penetrate the obfuscatory language.

A

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 09:21 PM

Got my attention with those questions. Not even wondering if you know the answers. They generated other questions - see below. And, I've stifled the desire to run to some possible ready answer tomes. Because of my musical nature, I'm going to approach this from the empirical side first.

I did a quick little test of my own. I can recognize a chord (Cmajor in this case, also tested minors and 9/6ths and augmented and diminished) if it is sounded for 100th sec. I have no apparatus to take it down to smaller degrees tonight.

I'm also wondering about bone conduction which allows one of my deaf friends to discern major and minor chords with incredible accuracy (he used to be able to hear, I admit, but he's totally deaf now). Haven't tested him for duration though.

I'll rev up my recording gear and try some samples at various rates for further empirical testing results tomorrow afternoon.

I need some baseline on my hearing, which I'm sure is quite different from a thirteen year old's. In other words, I can only respond for myself. I think only inferences can be made at that point, but individual tests can then be made and duplicated (or not) by anyone willing to follow my experiment even though the answer they arrive at is going to be different for each person and only a PHYSICAL answer at that.

As for the answer to the question, I suspect there's an eloquent outcome from this, and I state for the record (this isn't the answer yet folks):

Regardless of the duration of Nonrecognition, the resultant will be (assuming one or more than one instance as in a "piece" of music combined and "played back") in the realm of subauditory expression or at the most recognizable only in the sense of say, a twelve tone row a la Webern and his ilk, played at threshold level, one note (tone, wave form) at a time.

A music teacher would say it isn't a chord if I don't recognize it as such. And there are teachers out there that maintain a chord is simply an implied structure measured by the listeners ability to erect it. There are many "two note" (power) chordists out there in the pop field today. Webern would demand his works not even imply a chord - mighty hard to do if you are following any kind of music theory.

A physicist would say it isn't a chord if the wave forms are not present to maintain the (harmonic) structure and frequency order (right , Bruce? - If not tell me now and I'll complain to Dr. Mills promptly).

Sub to the above, could it be that failing the chord, the individual failed chords could be sounded together to make a "full" chord? Would a musician "build" a chord out of a non-chord row or individual non-chord? A non musician? A deaf person?

Notes: On the true auditory level: Will subjective responses to testing result in misconceptions? Is it possible to entirely rule out subjectivity? The pure physical laws may not apply - brain noise (imagined noise)?

I may be wrong, but it "feels" like that.

And for you others reading this, I did say Old Fashioned Way first. I'll see what pure physics holds later. I want to see about an assemblege of failed chords in practice. Gawd, SPL's, constant wave forms analysis, harmonic theory, atmospherics, EDL's - sheesh! (cackling)(ROTFLMAO)!

I contend that for practical purposes it doesn't matter to me as a musician unless it can be prepared and "played." If it indeed can be "played" it may have some interesting uses in regard to listener trends. The concept bears inspection anyway - what a neat thought you had Bruce. Removing myself far enough away from the question to be scientific about it ain't easy.

I'm very curious about the result. I'll try my best to use no handy references. As I stated, this is an OFW experiment. I feel that just looking at the problem will bring out the Heisenberg in ME. *BG*

For your question, you asked for subtle, so:

In the newly theorized mirror order universe, are you playing a CEG chord to your opposites A#AD? What does he hear it as? What would he hear your chord structure as? Are you louder or softer? (Whoops - more than one question - or is it?)

Last but not least, I think evolutionary ears is a distinct possibility. It would rankle me a bit to think Lucy had yours or mine (but I'd get over it).

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 09:26 PM

Well every generation since Lucy has been told they have their parents' ears, but that doesn't make it so.

I think human hearing probably moved into a different order of operation with the advent of vocal polyphony. There is nothing quite like it in the raw environment, even though the pieces are all there, I suppose.

A.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 10:01 PM

Gray Rooster. H have only the SOUND command of basic to experiment with and it Sound A, B A if frequency in Hz and B is time in seconds. It obviously doesn't really work right. I play 2000 Hz for 500 micro second (=1 cycle). I can play higher frequencies but for times smaller than 500 microseconds is just get a swishing sound. So I can't do much, and one can only get 1 frequency at a time so I can't make chords. I've been thinking about trying to find some software that can couple into a sound card, but that's just one on a long list to do someday. Sorry, I can't answer your questions, but let me mention a good, by a physicist, (practical, not a lot of long bewildering math equations, some short but relative simple math) Juan Roederer's 'The Physics and Psycho-Physics of Sound'. He explains how he ear works in considerable detail. And there's this long spiral tune that's a part of a logarithmic spiral, and each frequency excites it over a very short distance along the spiral. Frequency is converted to position on the spiral that way. There's more to it, of course, the hammer and anvil are at the end.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 10:13 PM

Spiral tube above.

**!??//|~~ Long reply vanished when I lost my internet connection. I'm nearly to the point of finding a new service provider. Against that is that there are lots of links to my website which would immediately die.

Aagh, I took too long to add a couple of sentences and it happened again, but I didn't lose the main part this to so I hurry on with hope that I can get this posted.

Rem Amos's 'perpetual source of energy above.

Personal experience: There's no guards at the gates or building entrances at NBS/NIST during working hours, so anyonce can walk in. Some carrying a strange looking contraption headed for the nearest lab or office and demanded that NBS certify his perpetual motion machine. The display of course didn't work because he didn't want the government to steal his idea, so he'd left out a couple of simple but ingenous little pieces. Nevertheless, he want his certification document right NOW.

The other is the guy with the little bottle that allegedly contained his secret formula of a combination of enzymes and bacteria that would eat all the salt out of sea water and turn it into fresh water at minuscule cost. There didn't seem to be any cold fusion involved to get rid of the sodium and chlorine, and he didn't know where they went, they just went. That one was awkward because there weren't any biological science people around, and none of us had studied up on how enzymes and bacteria did their shitting. We thought that was probably the answer, but an inventor who's certain that he's on the threshold of fame and fortune is never going to buy that. So we just confessed our ignorance, and picked someone we had a bit of a grudge against and sent said inventor to him for more expert evaluation (no on had name badges so he never knew who had sent him on).

I've been f--ing around here for days now, so if there's no interesting fight brewing I'm going back to folk songs and music.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,VO Knudsen
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 10:17 PM

The reverberation times of the Garden of Eden are also much different than your tiled shower, Dr. Olson, I'm guessing! We always have 2500 at our Garden of Eden shows! Optimum reverberation time and all!

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 12:48 AM

DON'T CALL ME DR.!!! Or we may have another fight here.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:00 AM

Bruce, some quick notes. I had a few minutes this morning before a long session and this little break time. I decided to test first for sample interrupt recognition.

I have a sound recording device by Digidesign that is a standard in the industry. It would qualify as a lab grade testing device for most of the things I'm going to try. The sound card I'm using is another matter. It is an SB Live card and it is subject to some fields I can't isolate and remove.

However, at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, I can disern a distict sound sample pattern interrupt difference over a four sample range. Possibly only three, but I knew what I was looking for then and remember what I said about brain noise in my last post. It SEEMS to have been there at a three sample range.

Method: I recorded a 440 Hz tone for 30 seconds and repeated this action onto three separate tracks. I then amplified each resultant randomly (with software) until all tracks reached 105dB at at least three points on the scale. I then moved one of the tracks in one sample steps around the 105 dB points until I could disern a difference. The difference being heard to me as a "click-buzz" (a non-specific to the 440 Hz test tone).

Then for grins, I looked at the resultant "click-buzz" at high resolution and analyzed the form using Fourier's method. The result was "not a note" registered at 440 Hz but a complex form did appear that had MANY attributes of MANY "notes" and this complex could be adjusted with little effort to "sound" at several nearby frequencies AND frequencies MUCH further away as a "pure tone" (frequency) mode, ie.: 336, 338, 442, 448, 650, 890.

So much to do. This suggests a chord may exist anywhere and nowhere, depending on the defined parameters of the test and the "ear" listening and judging the result. Three notes were indeed "found" in the test result, but I needed a visual cue to "see them."

This first pass at finding my ears leads me to believe I was correct in my basic assumption last post. I'm speaking on a personal bias about auditory level only. You'd really dig this if you were here.

Next pass I'll go ahead and lay down a diminished chord (less chance of pre-formed ears, more chance of brain noise), a major chord (reverse of the parens above), and a two note stack with octaves (invite the brain in).

I'm reminded of my clarinet teacher talking to his buddy in the hall back in '56 about Pete Fountain's ability to sound "non- notes" on his clarinet. The gist was "it's still music if I say it is - a note doesn't have to sound "good" to me to be right for the piece.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: John J
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:27 AM

Physics, songs, music, beer, life. Not always in that order.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 11:56 AM

d-n, did it again. I had a long comment explaining that in the real world there's always noise, just from fluctuation around the average number of photons per second that pass the energy that pass the energy (or fluctions about the average of arrival times of electons at the end of the connector wire for resistors) then lost my internet connection.

Off to get breaksfast and see if I can get an oscilloscope to put directly across the speaker terminals in my computer to see what BASIC sound command really sends it. Then I'm going to dig out an old fast Fourier transform program I wrote and the BASIC programs that generate data points to feed it. The heart of the the output graphics display program for it is in the in the two programs on my website.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 03:56 PM

Man, my ears are hearing everything in the room now.

I cut off all gross noise makers and isolated myself in a pretty fair booth, but my brain is too trained at the moment.

Method: I laid down the chords indicated with an electronic piano (Roland JX3P - not the cleanest but sufficient) running them for 5 seconds. Then I started clamping them in a loop, starting at .5 sec. intending to diminish the time .1 of a second each move. After reaching .1, I was hearing things "not there." I stopped for a period of 10 minutes and continued, starting at .09 sec. At .05 sec. I had to quit. My brain turned over active.

Note: the pre-roll (3 sec.) and post-roll (3 sec.) at 0dB started to sound tone-like to me fairly quickly. I think I need someone else to initiate the loops on their cue instead of mine. This will keep my brain out of it as much as "expectation" allows.

Back to it this evening - I too need my music.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 05:15 PM

Let me possibly qualify that logarithmic ear ( and maybe withdraw Eve's linear ear). I can't find ear response data for very, very low sound levels. Nature gives quite a few logaritmic response levels. The eye is linear at very, very low light levels, but by the time there's enough to make out, roughly, the edges of an illuminated object you've passed it intto the logarithmic range. Photo detectors, quantum rate and thermal devices are linear which is great for quantitative rediation ower measurement for absorption spectra. Emission for gases however give lines of intensity that can run to 4 orders of magnitude. A cheapie silicon diode has a short linear response for voltage across it then goes into a logarithmetic response that is pretty good. A photomultiplier tube doen't put out voltage, it puts out current. Feed it into the silicon diode and you can get all the emission lines on the same chart, as it's now except for the bottom 1% on a logarithmic scale.

Frustrated with the yellow pages and the web I ran over to NIST. The ones I were looking for were in France, and elsewhere. Jerry (one of NIST's brighest stars) spared me a few minutes and xeroxed a few pages from the Cole-Parmer scientific supplies catalogs. The oscilloscopes they sell to universities for undergrad physics and EE lab courses are just the ticket. I'm trying to see if in can get one on a VISA debit card. You can order on a little form on the web quite easily, if you have a corporate or institutional account, but that stopped me dead. I'm waiting for a reply to the email I sent them.

That simple experiment I did with Basic's Sound command isn't the only one I did, and there are several things that didn't work out. Running up in frequency by octave steps stopped at a much to low frequency (after sound command arrange to print frequency on the screen in the same loop while the note is playing, theoreticaly a crude way to estimate your hearing range. It's crude because you have no decibel control.)

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 06:55 PM

Only because you mentioned it - There are several ear tests available in software for download - at least there were several years ago. I remember trying one out and it suggested my ability to be a little above the normal for a man my age. You might try a search for it out on the web.

I'm beginning to think that the ability to discern sound levels in this case may indeed be predicated somewhat on dB as well. I mean, if the clamping is done at an incredibly swift level, increased volume may be called for. So, if I can't discern a chord at say, less then 100th sec. at street noise level (~ 80dB +/- 5dB), perhaps I can if the SPL is higher by a to be determined amount.

I hope I can do all this at < 40 dB and come up with a familiar result. I don't know if I can take in-ear phones directing high SPL into it for long at a high dB level.

Wish you were close. I have an old HP lab grade Audio Oscillator and somewhere I have a lab grade oscilliscope software package. You'd be welcome to use them. I might break them out after I get through with my empirical's and take another look that way.

And I'm shocked at you 'Catters out there that haven't come to the fore yet with some wonderfully silly comment about Bob and me searching for the LOST CHORD.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,grad student
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 08:17 PM

What's your hypopthesis?

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 09:31 PM

Hush! Let 'em roll!! This is the best fun we've had since Max learned javascript. I want to see if they come up with something reliable. I am greatly impressed and am enjoying the whole drama.

A

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 09:33 PM

A dedicated researcher sometimes just goes to it and finds out what's really behind something that looks a bit strange, and later, if deemed worthwhile, looks for a hypothesis to fit. All too often the data gets warped to fit the hypothesis if it's specific as to what might be happening. That makes one look good, but it isn't real scientific research.

I found the cards for computers to make them into oscilloscopes, but the mid-grade BASIC I have can't call outside of Basic. I used to have an audio oscillator I designed and built, but I doubt I could find the vacuum tubes for oscillator and power supply now. I tossed them a few years ago. I didn't hear from that oscilloscope supplyer today, and found Fisher Scientific, which used to be where I am tonight, moved away. If no results by tomorrow noon, I'll look up the local Hitachi sales rep. I found a Rockville company in the yellow pages that handles scientific optical instruments, Opthos Instruments - who used to be Joe B., an NBS lab technician, but he sold it to an atomic spectroscopist who never had a scope in his NBS lab when I was in it.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 02:40 AM

Bruce, what Basic are you running? I have several with some type of BASIC, including versions back to pre-GWBASIC, ie., PC/MSDOS (v.2, 3.0, 3.1, 3.3, 4.0, 4.1, 5 and 6). I'll go look if you want. I also think I have an old C Compiler and may still have a DOS FORTRAN module.

Also, are there any other universities up there with good caliber iron? You might be able to use some of their gear for the asking, from O'scopes to run time. Wish I still had my Cincinnati account. Lots of big iron there.

Edmonds Scientific ought to have what you're looking for if you don't have any luck elsewhere.

Thanks Amos - I did make some rather bold statements in the earlier post that our guest grad can take as preliminaries and I had a few pre-corollaries in the last one I think. Bruce is correct on the face of this however. I am trying to reach an empirical solution here first, using tools available to me and little or no reference material. An old fashioned experiment. I feel I sort of cheated using Fourier transformations.

I could run the capture through the wringer if I wanted. I have enough tools here to make Seamus sound like Mary Poppins if I wanted to.

I'll get back on the horse later on this morning. I had a long night with my students, one of whom is preparing a piece he hopes Tabasco will use in an advertisement. I asked him about the project here and he said it was a damn good question. He works for NORTEL in their computer lab and he said he might dive into this himself. He had some choice comments about it. One was that it was a curious thing to try to hear in any fashion because it has no bearing on the actual sound of the event (we laughed).

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 04:36 AM

OK, I fudged. I have kept at it. I also reviewed my previous posts and found a glaring error I shall now correct. I meant to say 10th of a second for recognition with the available equipment that day. I apologise for my typing error.

I also started fresh in the method of chord tone delivery to eliminate mental bias.

Now, to some gross test results -

Method: I chose a Martin Backpacker 6 string (steel, medium gauge) for my chord delivery. I captured the following chords: Amajor, Am, Adim and a "power" E chord. I plucked each chord several times and let it ring til the decay was evident (I was not timing the attack, sustain or decay).

I captured the waveforms into SoundForge 4.5 through a SONY ECM-56F microphone after using a three second pre-roll. I was after a gross test value only, so I was not concerned with the exact time of the events or the SPL or dB levels or ambient noise levels in the environment.

After capture, I then chose a chord form and enlarged the waveform view to include 100th's of seconds and played increasingly smaller segments from the beginning of each chord sample at a comfortable output (~ 30 dB +/- 3dB).

Briefly: In each case, I was able to recognize the nature of the chord type down to a degree of three one-hundredths of a second.

Notes: If I strip an electronic tri-tone series with the same chords down to the bare minimum required to maintain the integrity of the tonality, will the result be familiar with the gross test results arrived at with the acoustic instrument used in the previous test?

At what dB/SPL will this event fail?

Proceedings Future: Claim the gross test results as a baseline? Attach several "non-recognizable" samples from the recorded forms and test for tonal cohesion? Re-record and re-test with electronic means. Re-test at low and high SPL/dB. Identify the substantive elements of the structures that remained and were "identified as chords" in the gross test results. Correlate new data with sample recognition of previous test for interrupt recognition? New test subject for control purposes

Visibility: I will, by request, place my test samples as waveforms into email for examination. The samples will not be identified as Major, Minor, Diminished, or "Power" in distribution to allow individual examination at arms length. A full and complete waveform capture can be sent after each participant has had time to make assessments on their personal time using any available means and methods at their disposal. (But remember, this was a "trial run" to see if things worked at all.)

Direction: This gross test confirms my auditory abilities to a minor degree only. Next I need to set up a more controlled testing environment and place strict guidelines around which to refer and maintain the search for two things (a mistake in many cases): 1. The loss of chordal identity on the practical level and the mathematical level 2.Chordal recohesion from lost "parts" (for want of a better phrase because my musical nature demands the search).

Note to the above: How to assemble the parts - rules?

Sub to the above: Are the parts really lost? Is it a chord is a chord is a chord (fractal logic) or/and Heisenberg enters when EXACTLY. Can I hear the entry? (If ya didn't smile at that, ya must be tired)

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 09:26 AM

I'm trying to re-phrase what it is that you are looking at down to the point where I can understand it. The question seems to be: for how long must a chord be sounded before it is recognized as a chord? If the single note middle C at 256 Hz is sounded for only 1/100 second, this is only 2 full sine waves if a PURE tone, and overtones could be lost. Does the human ear recognize it in a short time?
Some empirical observations from many years ago: WWV time signals included a 440 cycle (this is in the days before Hz!!) or 600 cycle continuous tone, with a "tick" alleged to be a 1000 cycle "tone" sounded for 5/1000 second. When I read this I tried to hear the 1000 cycle tone and never could, all I could hear was a sharp "tick".
And yes, I know who to thank for WWV. Anyway, before proceeding further, have I understood the question?

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: harpgirl
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 11:25 AM

I have been following this with much fascination Pete, and I also thought that the reverberation in the room would affect what is heard...Is this not true? If so then the room acoustics would make a difference....

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 11:35 AM

Hi Abby-- nice to hear yur "voice". IF I have understood correctly (big if) we are talking of sounds of such short duration that they would not have time to get to the other side of the room and back. Sound = 1100 feet/second, if 1/100 second then the "wave" is 11' long, is all. Room acoustics make a BIG difference but they are talking about short sampling times here. I think.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 11:43 AM

I think were talking about times much smaller than it take for the sound waves to get to a wall and back to an observer, vs direct to obsever unless you're in a very small room.

Pete, if A is 440, the just intonation C is 264, C-B = 264,297,330,352,396,440,495- 2C=528

The fact that chords sound ok on a piano (12TET) means that the ear finds anything close quite acceptable. It's very forgiving of small errors (and they are % errors because of the logarithmic scale)

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 01:22 PM

Pete, the actual question was "when does a chord become a non chord?" This implies attacking the problem in the reverse of your rephrasing.

Also, having worked with pro level gear and software in recording situations that demanded concrete times and zero crossing points at absolutes, I had a fairly good idea what I could hear sample-wise. I rechecked anyway as part of the method. There are some super ears out there that I've worked with who can nail down things to incredible degrees. I am not one of them, so I need a baseline.

I've never looked at the question from any angle until Bruce mentioned it. The question itself led me to others that I find much more attractive (see my earlier posts). In order to continue the search for these answers, I must determine the LOST CHORD point to the best of me ability in order to pursue them.

And, I told everyone I was tired when I continued on early this morning. I erred because of it. When I played the sample chords, I used as many as six notes and as few as four only. I was trying to limit the test to three note examples. I'm sure most are well aware that a diminished chord consists of four notes unless you want to get into implied tonality. I feel a little sheepish. I did say I was quite wary of my ability to step outside the nature of this path. I'm so anxious to determine the next phases I lost track of the procedure.

I'll still email the cut sections as .WAV files for anyone who cares to try a little pattern recognition. I think they still offer some valid inferences to the original pursuit.

Back to it a little later after I clean up a track or two from some more obvious types of work.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 08 Mar 01 - 05:21 PM

Room surfaces have 'absorption units' based on abosorption (total loss through an open window [i.e., negative reflection coefficiants] as 'a' (a weighted average, and it depends a bit on sound frequency, absoption generally going up at higher frequency). The reverberation time in seconds is:

T= 0.05V/[-S*log_e(1-a)]

where V is room volume in cubic feet and S is it's area in square feet.

Note that sound and music is not my specialty, I'm just another amateur in that field, so don't take much having to do with music from me. Scientists have often fallen flat on their faces in areas outside their specialty. A world class physical chemistry reseacher/ Prof. at U. of Wisconsin was a little worried about gaining some weight. He worked out a lo-cal wholesome and tasty diet that went into the trash can when someone pointed out to him that a nutritionist's calories were 1000 times larger than a chemist's calories.

I'm obsolete. 20 years with SI units and they haven't sunk in yet, so I still use cgs (except for watts in EE) and convert at the end. I love cps because I know the dimensions directly and the conversation to SI's Hz is done by a simple word processer find and replace command.

I'm about ready to see if I can find an unlocked side or back door at the local Hewlett-Packard or Techtronix buildings for the oscilloscope problem. The front door only takes you to the receptionist, and if you aren't there to open a new corporate acccount or order something on an existing one they have no idea what to do with you. There are probably 20 places within 4 miles of me (which can put me at the center of 'biotech alley') that sell oscilloscopes. Water, water everywhere, but narry a drop to drink.

Pete, that 256 cps for C is very common in old books, but A=440 is widely taken as standard now for Western music, so old C=256 is gone. That A=440 isn't all that great as a standard either, unless everything you play is major or minor. There are quite a few key-mode combinations in just intonation that demand A=445.5000 cps. C, F, or G would have been much to standardize on.

Everything on my website is amateur, too, because I even learn the programing for the computer programs there on my own from a book.

There is a way to call outside procedures from my Truebasic Silver Edition, but it looks like I'd have to fake the outside one as a Truebasic compiled program, and I don't know if I could in the outside program accept the parameters that the main program passed.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 09:33 AM

Thanks. Thinking. (or trying to)

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 05:19 PM

Pete, classical major chords have freq's in ratios 4:5:6 amd minors as 10:12:15. Starting with A=440 one can get the whole 7 note diatonic scale from that.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 01 - 09:26 PM

Should have added

FACEGBD

major chords start with odd numbered letter and minor with even. However, if you want minor D1FA you have to have D1= 293 1/3 cps, instead of D=297, then it's:

D1FACEGBD

and odd and even are switched fom that above. Nearly went to hell for scope today. Went to Tektronics and expaline what I wanted, an the man gave me a scope brochure with an 800 number to call. He didn't tell me they no longer made scopes like I asked about, and lowest cost one now was $1195. 2 hours on the web took me to Tektronics, Hewlett-Parkard (where I couldn't get to ordinary scopes), Hitachi (looked good on one until I clicked on pricing page and that blanked my screen and locked up my computer, and I had to cut power to restore), and Leader. Finally in a scientific supplies catalog (they wouldn't sell to me) I got mfr. name, Instek, and between manufacturer's and dealer's websites I got specs, and a place to order from on VISA card. So in a week I hope to have a scope, 35 Mhz, 2 channel (or trace).

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Gray Rooster
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:31 AM

Great Bruce, glad you're getting what you need. when you test, what are you going to use as your signal generator? Are you going to try pure tones, scrubbed signals, or are you going to allow acoustic harmonic properties into you group?

I've been trying to layout a protocol here.

I've also been thinking that I may run into a signal extraction problem when I start looking at the smaller bits of data I'm collecting. I've run a few quick tests and realize the extraction process I'm trying is somewhat subjective. I look, pick a sample and go. (SMILE)

I wish I'd paid more attention to Silverman's translation of the Wiener-Kolmogorov theory of filtering and prediction of stationary random processes and sequences. And, detection of signals of known form in the presence of noise.

I'm wondering if I might also be better able to test if I'm GIVEN a form and asked to derive or parse it, not knowing where the form originates from.

Plodding on. Will clean up my baseline this week with more accurate input.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:55 AM

Have just started thinking about a signal generator. I don't want the modern type where they RC integrate on a square wave and try to filter out the harmonics, because there's a lot they don't filtered out. For noise and filtering theory I've go Goldman's book. One and only once I managed to measure a noise power spectrum (1/f noise from a photodetector). You've got to interpolate through 120 and 60 HZ. You never get rid of it out unless your whole setup if run off of batteries and you've got it all in a Faraday cage. Your voltmeter for measuring output has to be accurate square-law so reading is proportional to power. For the the bandpass you've got the problem of getting the the bandpass right for power, so you can get transfer funcetion powerwise. Power and voltage tranmsfer functions aren't the same. 3 db points work approximately for voltage, but aren't even close for power.

I had one course in noise and filtering at the U. of Wash. It got offered by the Physics Dept. But nobody at the U could teach it, so it was a night class given by a math-EE from Boeing. I have C. Shannon's orig. edit. of Information theory (1954), but that's basically all digital.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 12:34 PM

Yeah, ok, I think I ....naw... I don't have a clue. And now for something completely different - this is what I think of when I think of physicists thinking........

Exam Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing with time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving.

I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions, and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell. Because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Teresa Banyan during my Freshman year-- "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you."-- and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then #2 cannot be true; and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" GIVEN

Now, I can relate to that kind of physics.

gnu

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:41 PM

Hell can't be all that hot; some book of about 1518 (which I put on some thread here a long time ago). Said Rumbelow was only three miles away, and as near as I can figure out Rumbelow was about the next best thing to heaven (17th century Rock Candy Mountian, and much earlier Land of Cockaigne (now Cocaine), and that sort of thing.)

At any rate Boyle's Law is only a rough approximation to real gas behaviour. Vander Wall's equation is a lat better but not 100% accurate (that triple point does in any purely analytical expression), and with computers now that cubic equation is a snap to solve. Speculators like to cogitate about entropy's relation to information and noise, but always forget that the sign is different.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:48 PM

I forgot to ask gnu if Terresa ever got cold enough to sleep with him. Talk about complex physics, it's hell to model horizontal folk dancing, and describing in either words or numbers that outcome. It's doesn't get really erect, whoops, hard, until after the out come.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:59 PM

Of course, discussing hard facts, you meant during the coming out, the prelude to the out coming. After the out come, the theory gets all soft and fuzzy...er...fuzzy number theory sets in. Yeah, that's it.

confusedgnu

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 03:15 PM

That's limber theory. I'm sure that's a just a typo. I'm always doing that kind of thing.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 03:24 PM

Anixously awaiting that scope, and not being able to settle down to do anything useful or educational while I wait. The devil has work for idle hands, but he only told me about thumb twiddling, and after I got that down pat, it got pretty boring, so I've here turned to see what an idle cerebellum can come up with, and found there's a mountian of trivia stored there that I'd never dreamed of (or off). Freud never got to first base cuse his drug habit dulled his senses so bad he didn't recognize much of anything up there.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 03:56 PM

Drugs, drugs, drugs... it seems everybody was/is on drugs. It's not that I judge people who did/do drugs, but hey, why do so many people allude to the fact ( ? ) that this or that person did/does drugs ?

My favourite artist, M.C. Escher, did a mountain of drugs, as can be seen in his works - he made no bones about it ! However, when I try to instill appreciation for his works in someone who has never seen his works, I do not show them the self portrait first ( the one with the pipe and bowl prominently displayed larger than life )...I show them the intensely mathematical works of art for which he is famous. True works of art and provoking of mind and perception. When you taint the perception of any arguement/discussion with "facts" which are not persuant, you detract from your analytical rigour and lose credibility....no, I'm good....put it out.

gnu

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:37 PM

There's no denying that some people did marvelous things while high on drugs or alcohol, but my judgement was it was the people and not a boost from drugs or alcohol. I think it usually is the opposite, not that they don't fool you into thinking you have heightened awareness and perception. Geniuses sometimes used alcohol and drugs to drown out the 'reallity' that they have to put up with that us dullards contrived to make the 'norm' in our arbitrary culture.

But I've also seen MENSA people that made the 5 minute attention span of a top administrator seem like infinity. They hopped from one advanced perception to another very quickly, but couldn't stop themselves from that, to get any one of those developed into anything at all usefull. Real geniuses learned how to contol that.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:45 PM

Would that be a controlled substance ?

gnu

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:55 PM

Usually, but what culture you're stuck in determines who does the controlling, and some don't seem have much sense about contolling it from our perspective. It's bad for babies some places, and soothes them elsewhere, and all that sort of thing, so it's all sort of relative to imponderables.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 05:16 PM

Altzheimer's again on that last one, but not too bad yet, because it only took about 20 minutes to figure out who I was. But enough now of phyics and associated imponderables for a while. I'm going the try to find something productive or educational to do now if it kills me.

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 12:49 PM

I've started off on Sound cammand in BASIC, and what you actually get from it in a new thread BS: Hearing ABCs

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Mar 01 - 01:23 PM

You know, the things you guys are saying about controlled substances make some sense. Consider someone whose mind is racing a million times faster than us normal bozos. Maybe taking some controlled substance enables them to slow down long enough to actually carry out some of the crazy schemes their brains come up with.

After all, the drug you give to someone with Attention Deficit Disorder is a stimulant.

When I worked at the Sylvan Learning Center, the boss had just been diagnosed with ADHD. When I asked her how she got an advanced degree with ADHD, she said, simply, "cocaine."

Why did Sherlock Holmes do coke? For the clarity of thought it produced. Methinks maybe he was hyperactive, no?

I doubt very much that drugs induce creativity. But they may make exercising it possible for people who just spin faster than they are able to otherwise make use of?

Just some thoughts.

Alex

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 09:35 PM

Please join us for Part II of this scintillating scietifistic conversation over here.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: What DO Physicists Think About?
From: GUEST,fe
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 05:51 AM

they think about the color of the universe and if it is beige