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The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

jakubmarian.com

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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#161

Post by akira2501 »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #138
dhimes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second is defined as the time it takes for two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the 133 Ce atom to make 9,192,631,770 transitions. How is that not special?

Because that definition was grandfathered in such that it matched the previous definition of a second up to the previously specified precision. You've just moved the arbitrary part to the number 9,192,631,770. The same thing was done for the meter (defined such that the speed of light is precisely 299,792,458 m/s), ampere (current which produces 2 × 10−7 N/m of force between two parallel conductors). There's plans to…

> current which produces 2 × 10−7 N/m of force between two parallel conductors

Hate to be a stickler, but: "...conductors of negligible cross-section and of infinite length." It's still one of my least favorite SI definitions.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#162

Post by gaur »

detaro wrote: post #30
a3n wrote: post #19

> the BBC required their orchestras to tune to 440 Hz instead of 439 Hz because 439 is a prime number, and the corresponding frequency is hard to generate electronically. I followed, until this. Earlier he debunks the significance of 432 per second (including that it's a sum of four consecutive primes), because a second is an arbitrary length of time. But now he says that 439 per second is difficult to generate elect…

From other sources it doesn't seem clear if this actually was considered in the decision, but it describes how they got the tone: > The B.B.C. tuning-note is derived from an oscillator controlled by a piezo-electric crystal that vibrates with a frequency of one million Hz. This is reduced to a frequency of 1,000 Hz by electronic dividers; it is then multiplied eleven times and divided by twenty-five, so producing the…

I wonder why they decided it was better to design and build an 11x multiplier and a 25x divider rather than cut a 440 kHz crystal and run it with a copy of the 1000x divider electronics they already had.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#163

Post by bravo22 »

zokier wrote: post #107
bravo22 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

439 being a prime would be an issue if you were up multiplying a lower frequency to generate it, for example using a PLL. However it is such a slow signal that it would be generated by dividing down a higher frequency. For example you can divide it down from an 18 MHz clock. So, nope his claim doesn't make sense.

439 from 18M requires a divisor of 41, which does sound trivial. Meanwhile 440 from 1M requires only dividing by 5 and 2 when first multiplied by 11, which might have been significantly simpler than dividing by 41. I wonder if there is some easy way of figuring out the simplest base number-multiplier-divisor chains for getting certain numbers?

PLL's have been around since the 1920's. They could easily divide by n. The actual value of n didn't matter (within some bounds).

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#164

Post by bravo22 »

zokier wrote: post #107
bravo22 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

439 being a prime would be an issue if you were up multiplying a lower frequency to generate it, for example using a PLL. However it is such a slow signal that it would be generated by dividing down a higher frequency. For example you can divide it down from an 18 MHz clock. So, nope his claim doesn't make sense.

439 from 18M requires a divisor of 41, which does sound trivial. Meanwhile 440 from 1M requires only dividing by 5 and 2 when first multiplied by 11, which might have been significantly simpler than dividing by 41. I wonder if there is some easy way of figuring out the simplest base number-multiplier-divisor chains for getting certain numbers?

PLL's have been around since the 1920's. They could easily divide by n. The actual value of n didn't matter (within some bounds).

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#165

Post by castratikron »

cbr wrote: post #92

An equilateral triangle whose area and perimeter are equal has the area of exactly the square root of 432. Let's say we have an equilateral triangle with a perimeter of 3x units. Then each side is x units, and the area is sqrt(3) * x^2 / 4 square units. So we set: 3x = sqrt(3) * x^2 / 4 3 = sqrt(3) * x / 4 3*4/sqrt(3) = x 12/sqrt(3) = x Then the area is: sqrt(3) * (12/sqrt(3))^2 / 4 sqrt(3) * 144 / 12 sqrt(3) * 12 sq…

I saw that in the article, too, but it didn't make sense to me. One has units of area and the other has units of length. How can they possibly be equal? That's like saying a 700 foot wall is the same size as a 700 square foot apartment.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#166

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

ptaipale wrote: post #120
costcopizza wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh-- pick your battles. If family members get a positive placebo effect from listening to "5 Hours High Quality BEST 432hz Meditation Healing Chakra" on YouTube...Who cares?

The one whose inheritance is next squandered on highly priced meditation chakra recordings and excessively expensive hoax high-end audio equipment? (From Youtube to purchasing mail order junk...)

Until that person dies or is otherwise ruled incapacitated, it's their money to spend however they like.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#167

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #79
a3n wrote: post #19

> the BBC required their orchestras to tune to 440 Hz instead of 439 Hz because 439 is a prime number, and the corresponding frequency is hard to generate electronically. I followed, until this. Earlier he debunks the significance of 432 per second (including that it's a sum of four consecutive primes), because a second is an arbitrary length of time. But now he says that 439 per second is difficult to generate elect…

Maybe if your "electronics" are vacuum tubes and relays. In the digital domain it's not an issue at all.

What do you think they were using in 1939.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#169

Post by smilekzs »

ap22213 wrote: post #54

Fascinating stuff. I have never pondered the arbitrariness of musical tunings (probably because I am not a musician). However, if these tunings and notes vary so much, what does it mean when one claims that they have 'perfect pitch'? Is it an ability that uses the relative distance between notes? That is, given an A they can identify the C?

I'd say perfect pitch = relative pitch + internal pitch reference (i.e. A=440). You cannot be born with the latter pre-programmed in your brain because that's an arbitrary number.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#170

Post by ohthehugemanate »

haberman wrote: post #43

> orchestras specializing in older music may sometimes tune in the tuning close to the one for which the piece was originally written, which may range from 415 Hz to 470 Hz). I can say as someone who performs a lot of Baroque music (c. 1600 - 1750) that there is a relatively common standard of A=415 for music of this period. A=415 is often referred to as "Baroque pitch." This mainly applies to ensembles that speciali…

Opera singer here - you must be playing in North America. In Germany tunings range from 436 to 444, depending on what you're playing. Most theaters tune to 442.

One thing that gets opera singers (like me) up in a knot about this, is that the human voice is not a tune-able instrument. There are registration issues in fixed frequency ranges, which we can't change. At A440, a register shift happens a quarter tone lower than where Mozart and Verdi expected it. That creates a sound difference that an audience can hear, and a big difference technically.

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