music
Einstein Year at Glastonbury!
Glastonbury Festival:
the music…the crowds…the bands…the mud…the physics?! To most
festival-goers, physics may not have an obvious link with Glastonbury.
However, the chance to challenge expectations made it an ideal place
for five hardy souls from Graphic Science to go forth and engage with Glastonbury-ites with physics related demonstrations, tricks and quizzes.
Braving
the horrendous conditions (and thanking their lucky stars that they
were in a camper van and not a tent) members of the team performed
tricks including the waterproof hanky and the fantastic alka seltzer rocket (click on the titles to view mpegs of these physics tricks - you'll need Flash!). All of the explanations and more videos can be found in the Physics to Go pack so you can create your own Glastonbury experience, but without the mud! Click here to view images of EY at Glastonbury.
And, after all that hard work of talking to revellers, wading through
mud, taking Einstein to watch the bands - the whole event was evaluated
and you can read the final report here.
Heavenly Music at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
On
Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 June, the grounds of the National
Maritime Museum were alive with the sound of space. Participants
in the Heavenly Music workshops were wandering around with handheld low frequency radios listening to the cosmic sounds around them.
Listening
in on the Sun, Earth’s natural frequencies, the aurora chorus,
pulsars, magnetosphere sounds, the cosmic microwave background, as well
as Jupiter and its moons was a first for most.
The workshops
also included short demonstrations using musical instruments
to explain the concepts of harmonics and string theory before
participants were let loose on the instruments to compose their own
space-inspired tunes.
Famelab competition
On 14 June, Dr Mark Lewney won the Famelab competition with a fantastic talk on the physics of the electric guitar.
Find out more about Mark's talk in his own words:
"I entered the competition because I think scientific explanations are
important for our mental wellbeing. We need to ask each other why
things happen the way they do, otherwise we feel as lost and uncertain
as a caveman looking at lightning".
Find out more about how an electric guitar makes sound!
Links
Why not find out more on the physics of music at physics.org, the Institute of Physics' searchable database of physics links and information?
How mp3 files work
The physics of the didgeridoo
Soundwaves and music
The physics of stringed instruments
Planet Science page on the physics of music
