How the physics of resonance shapes reality
quantamagazine.org
How the physics of resonance shapes reality
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Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#2Very interesting!
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#3"Resonance underlies aspects of the world as diverse as music, nuclear fusion in dying stars, and even the very existence of subatomic particles."
I learned recently that the harmonics of consonant musical notes have aligned frequencies. Meaning: the most consonant notes produce the most resonance between the strings. For example, two strings at a consonant interval of a fifth (3:2) have harmonic resonance every 3rd and every 2nd harmonic band. This is much easier to show with a visual of the spectrograms: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cdRfvPtek44rH8k2GpMV...
As oscillations of neurons in the brain will also show this harmonic structure (due to the frequency following responses [1]), consonant notes may also produce the most neural resonance! But, we don't have the ability to measure and test this hypothesis yet.
[1] Bidelman, G. M., & Momtaz, S. (2021). Subcortical rather than cortical sources of the frequency-following response (FFR) relate to speech-in-noise perception in normal-hearing listeners. Neuroscience Letters, 746, 135664.
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#4This rabbit hole is part of why I got into eurorack/modular. It was to apply my musical ear to intuitions to help learn about waves and harmonics. There is a lot of woo around that crossover, but when I can hear the difference in a transform and then see it reflected on an oscilloscope or in a spectrogram, its easier to get a feel for what the constants and coefficients are supposed to do. (especially with the Maths module) A generation of kids playing with their parents' rigs and getting that feel may yield a new renaissance in physics in a couple of short decades. I'm just a hacker and a writer, and beneath what might be called an artist, but I have the sense that an emerging trend of popular quantitative culture is building momentum.
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#5"Resonance underlies aspects of the world as diverse as music, nuclear fusion in dying stars, and even the very existence of subatomic particles." I learned recently that the harmonics of consonant musical notes have aligned frequencies. Meaning: the most consonant notes produce the most resonance between the strings. For example, two strings at a consonant interval of a fifth (3:2) have harmonic resonance every 3rd…
Why would we not have ability? Is it not in the same area where implants typically are? Could try in primates potentially too
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#6If particles can be understood as resonances in a field then it’s hard for me to understand “stable” particles. What keeps them around? My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. What am I missing?
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#7If particles can be understood as resonances in a field then it’s hard for me to understand “stable” particles. What keeps them around? My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. What am I missing?
Resonances are like vibrations on a trampoline; stable particles are more like lumps in a carpet.
Usually what keeps particles stable is that they carry some quantum number(s) that is/are conserved, and no lighter combination of particles can be made with that combination.
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#8If particles can be understood as resonances in a field then it’s hard for me to understand “stable” particles. What keeps them around? My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. What am I missing?
Superconductors can theoretically produce perpetual motion: once you set up a supercurrent, it will keep going forever. The caveat being that the electrons that are to move perpetually cannot do work of any kind*. That is, the field generated by the supercurrent cannot be interacted with.
Likewise, an ideal LC circuit made of superconducting material can theoretically ring forever, provided "nobody hears the sound". So, given my understanding of the physics, nature does not forbid stable perpetual resonances (though engineering constraints may forbid even microscopic perpetual resonators).
* When people talk about "perpetual motion machines" they tend to want to extract energy from them. That's folly.
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#9If particles can be understood as resonances in a field then it’s hard for me to understand “stable” particles. What keeps them around? My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. What am I missing?
Part of the difficulty in that analogy is that we normally think of things as damped by some surrounding media. For particles (modeled as field resonances storing quantized spatially concentrated energy) the only damping is coupling to other resonances (e.g. other particles). The particles were created by those interactions and they be annihilated (or decay) into other particles depending on how those resonances couple. Often due to quantization, this requires multiple particles including photons to "transmute" and that combination tends to reduce the likelihood of the interaction. That's my intuition from 30 years ago, anyway.
Re: How the physics of resonance shapes reality
#10If particles can be understood as resonances in a field then it’s hard for me to understand “stable” particles. What keeps them around? My mental model for resonance and waves requires some kind of constant input energy to maintain the oscillations in the field which produce the particles. What am I missing?
Resonances are like vibrations on a trampoline; stable particles are more like lumps in a carpet. Usually what keeps particles stable is that they carry some quantum number(s) that is/are conserved, and no lighter combination of particles can be made with that combination.
The observables are conserved, but I guess I always thought of the internal complex quantum states spinning away on their own.