Science and Music: From The Music of The Depths To The Music of The Spheres

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Science and Music: From the Music of the Depths to the Music of the Spheres
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SCIENCE AND MUSIC: FROM THE MUSIC OF THE DEPTHS TO
THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
JEAN MARUANI *, ROLAND LEFEBVRE ·, AND

MARJA RANTANEN #
* Laboratoire de Chimie Physique, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie,
75005 Paris, France – maruani@ccr.jussieu.fr
·
Laboratoire de Photophysique Moléculaire, Université Paris-Sud,
91000 Orsay, France – roland.lefebvre@ppm.u-psud.fr
#
Conservatoire Municipal de Musique, 26 rue Mouton-Duvernet,
75014 Paris, France – marjema@wanadoo.fr
Table of Contents
1. - Introduction
2. - Sound and Music
3. - The Pyramid of Complexity
4. - Music of Elementary Particles
5. - Music of Atomic Nuclei
6. - Music of Chemical Elements
7. - Musical Patterns in Molecular Spectra
8. - Musical Patterns in Biomolecular Structures
9. - Music in the Living World and Biological Rhythms
10. - The Music of the Spheres
11. - Music in the Human Realm
12. - Conclusion
1. Introduction
Connections between science and music (and philosophy) go back to remote periods
of history, when they did not exist as such but were part of magic rituals. The oldest
known musical instrument is a 45,000 year-old (Neanderthal) flute made simply of a
hollow bear bone, which was dug up in Slovenia in 1995. But the earliest complete,
playable, multinote music instruments are small flutes made from hollow bird bones,
found in a 9,000 year-old settlement at Jiahu, China, in 1999, Figure 1 [1].
2
JEAN MARUANI, ROLAND LEFEBVRE, AND MARJA RANTANEN
Fig. 1 - (a) The six complete 9,000 year-old flutes found at the early Neolithic site of Jiahu in
the Henan Province in China. These flutes, made of hollow bird bones, are between 17 and 24
cm long and have 5, 6, 7 or 8 holes. The best preserved 7-hole flute was tonally analyzed by
Huang Xiangpeng from the Art Institute of China. (b) A score of a piece of music played on
this flute (Brookhaven National Laboratory, http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/flutes.html).
The first recorded thinker in the Western world who explicitly introduced physical
and mathematical (and also mystical) considerations into musicology was the Greek
philosopher Pythagoras, in the 6th century BC. Using strings of different lengths and
integrating former modes, he devised the first diatonic scale, which prevailed till the
17th century and on which modern tempered scales are still based [2, 3]. In classical
education, music was part of the quadrivium together with arithmetic, geometry and
astronomy. Numerous mathematicians and physicists (from Descartes to Euler and
3
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
Huygens to Helmholtz) wrote memoirs on the arithmetic or acoustics of music. For

Leibnitz, "Music is an exercise of secret arithmetic". And in the 20th century, Louis
de Broglie thought of matter waves by associating the quantum numbers in atomic
spectra to standing waves in the electron orbits [4]. In this respect, it has been said
that modern quantum theory stems from the very same root as the theory of music.
Relations between science and music are of various kinds: 1) physics and mathem-
atics, together with physiology and neurology, can help to understand the theory of
music (for instance, Fourier expansions of musical sounds provide the background
for understanding harmony, and the analysis of biological rhythms for understanding
melody, rhythm and tempo) [5-7]; 2) technical developments based on scientific pro-
gress (as the building of the organ or the advent of the computer) can be influential in
the evolution of music (as in the stochastic music of Iannis Xenakis) [7, 8]; 3) cultu-
ral changes induced by scientific progress may set the background for novel musical
trends (for instance, the modal music of ancient Greece may be related to geocentric
cosmology, and Schönberg's atonal music to Einstein's relativistic cosmology [9]); 4)
science and technology motives can be used (as other cultural, folk, military or reli-
gious motives) as a source of inspiration for music composers (e.g., Planet suite by
Holtz or Electron-positron by Risset) as for other artists [10]; 5) on the other hand,
the practice of music can help develop emotional intelligence [11] (philosophers and
scientists, from Plato through Feynman, were often fond of music [12]); 6) music can
also be used for its psychotherapic effects (from David healing Saul's melancholy by
playing the lyre [13] through the modern techniques of music therapy [14]): Novalis
believed that "Every illness is a musical problem; its healing, a musical solution".
However, the deepest connection between science and music lies in the existence
of musical patterns at the various levels of complexity. Everything in Nature, from
elementary particles to galaxy clusters, through atomic and molecular spectra, crystal
and polymer structures, biological and geological rhythms, and the songs of birds or
dolphins, is made of waves, vibrations, periodicities, resonances. From Plato to Kep-
ler one spoke of a harmony of the spheres [15]. In the 19th century German mineralo-
gists V. Goldschmidt and K. Weiss and in the 20th century Russian physiologists A.
Samoilov and V. Vernadsky noticed a similarity between musical scales and crystal
symmetries, pointing to a harmony of the depths. More recently Joël Sternheimer has
shown that the masses of stable elementary particles are distributed along a tempered
scale [16]. In the following, we shall show how basic properties of nuclei and atoms
along the periodic table, as well as molecular spectra [17], can be brought to musical
scores. We shall also present the codes devised by various authors to express the dis-
tributions of amino-acids in proteins [18, 19] and of nucleotide bases in nucleic acids
[18, 20], with the monomers as music notes to form meaningful scores. We will pro-
ceed to the living world, the solar system, and the human realm. We conclude with a
possible use of music as a tool to help extract implicit order from apparent chaos.
In the next two paragraphs we recall a few concepts which may help the physicist
with the terminology of music, the musician with that of physics, and both with the
philosophical implications of the links between physics and music.
4
2. Sound and music

A piece of monophonic music is made of a temporal succession of specific sounds
endowed with various characteristics, represented in a musical score by note symbols
distributed around a stave made of a few parallel lines. The characteristics of a note
are its pitch, represented by its position on the frame (the sharper the sound, the upper
the note) and possibly a side symbol altering it to slightly sharper or flatter; its dura-
tion, represented by its intrinsic shape (from a full note or more to a sixteenth or less);
its strength (from fortissimo to pianissimo); and its tone, which makes the same note
played by various voices or instruments sound different. Another characteristic of a
piece of music is its tempo, which tells how long it takes to play some subdivision of
the note: a tempo of 72 means there are 72 durations of the chosen note in a minute
(about as many as heart beats); training musicians use a metronome (like the clock of
a processor) to feel the tempo. In polyphonic music there is a harmonious superposi-
tion of melodic patterns played by several performers, usually lead by a chief.
Musical sounds are formed by acoustic waves whose physical characteristics deter-
mine those of the sound. Contrary to electromagnetic waves (from γ rays to radio wa-
ves through x rays, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and micro-waves), which can travel
through vacuum, acoustic waves need a material medium to propagate, mainly air for
musical sounds. Just as a small range of electromagnetic waves are visible (between
0.4 and 0.8 µ for humans), a small range of acoustic waves are audible (between 16
and 20,000 Hz), although infra- and ultra-sounds can affect other human organs and
be perceived by some animal ears.
Periodic waves are usually a superposition of sinusoidal components with a stron-
ger one (the fundamental) and weaker ones (the harmonics), whose frequencies are
multiples of that of the first. Each sinusoidal component is characterized by an amp-
litude A, a frequency ν (or wavelength λ = v/ν, where v is the velocity of the wave,
about 340 m/s for sound waves in standard atmosphere and 300,000 km/s for light in
vacuum) and a phase φ. In music, the frequency of the fundamental determines the
pitch of the note, its amplitude, the strength or intensity of the note, and the harmonic
pattern, the tone [21]. It results from Fourier analysis of sounds that the tempo of a
piece and durations of the notes also play a role in the harmonic patterns.
A musical score involves several musical phrases, sets of notes endowed with spe-
cific characteristics: harmony, melody, rhythm, strength modulation, tempo variation.
Harmony is a combination of notes (interval for two notes, triad for three) played si-
multaneously (for instance, by several fingers on a piano), the fundamentals and the
harmonics of these notes having, as frequency ratios, simple rational fractions in or-
der to avoid unpleasant beats. Melody is the envelope of note pitches in a phrase: it is
related to harmony and also has the form of a wave, with a length depending on the
tempo. Rhythm is the pattern formed by a sequence of durations of successive notes
in a set of measures (which divide the score in structured divisions of equal length),
and may involve silent notes of various lengths (rests and subdivisions): a simple ex-
ample of rhythm is that of the SOS signal in Morse language. Just as a melody can be
5
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
seen as a pitch wave, a rhythm can be seen as a duration wave. Strength modulation
(crescendo, decrescendo, piano or forte subito) and tempo variation (accelerando,
ritardo, hold) bring in other kinds of waves in the score. There may also be higher-
frequency trills within given notes, and legato between notes. The skill of the artists
has shown great fertility in making music notation express various feelings in even
more subtle ways. The art of the composer (and the style of the performer) may set
subtle relations between the amplitudes, lengths, and phases of these various waves.
The notes used in a musical score belong to a musical scale, divided by the octave.
In a given scale the sounds associated with successive notes are in specific frequency
ratios (or intervals in a logarithmic scale). Notes differing by a frequency factor of 2
sound similar and therefore bear the same name, with a number specifying the octave
rank. Table I displays the octave corresponding to the middle part of the piano. Piano
keys can play sounds extending over > 7 octaves: there is a factor 27.25 # 152 between
the frequencies of the sounds played by the farthest piano keys (~ 27 to 4,200 Hz).
The first line of the table gives the names of standard notes in the international and
roman notations. The following three double lines give their frequency ratios relative
to C (do) 3 (upper) and to the preceding note (lower); starting the next octave, C (do)
4 has a frequency double that of C (do) 3. The first double line displays Pythagoras’
scale (6th century BC) and the second, Zarlino’s scale (16th century AD): both scales
are based on the search for rational numbers permitting best harmony between simul-
taneous sounds (no generation of audible beats) and best melody transposition (scores
quasi-invariant through any shift along the scale) [3].
The table shows only the notes of the major diatonic scale (white keys of a piano).
Bold separation bars stand for intermediate notes (black keys of a piano), given in the
last two lines, completing the scale to a 12-note chromatic scale. In both Pythagoras’
and Zarlino’s scales these notes are commensurable to others, which makes X sharp
slightly different from Y flat. The search for a compromise between harmony and me-
lody has led scientists and musicians (e.g., Vincento Galilei or J.-S. Bach) to propose
the even tempered (or equal temperament) scale, where the octave is split into twelve
equally spaced intervals (in the logarithmic scale): the notes obtained (middle double
line of the table) are very close to those of the earlier scales (quasi-perfect harmony)
but permit perfect transposition, since there X sharp is identical to Y flat.
C (do) 3 D (ré) 3 E (mi) 3 F (fa) 3 G (sol) 3 A (la) 3 B (si) 3 C (do) 4
1 9/8 81/64 4/3 3/2 27/16 243/128 2
(9/8) (9/8) (256/243) (9/8) (9/8) (9/8) (256/243)
1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2
(9/8) (10/9) (16/15) (9/8) (10/9) (9/8) (16/15)
1 (12√ 2)2 (12√ 2)4 (12√ 2)5 (12√ 2)7 (12√ 2)9 (12√ 2)11 2
12 2 12 2 12 12 2 12 2
( √ 2) ( √ 2) ( √ 2) ( √ 2) ( √ 2) (12√ 2)2 (12√ 2)
C3 sharp D3 sharp → F3 sharp G3 sharp A3 sharp → C4 sharp
D3 flat E3 flat G3 flat A3 flat B3 flat D4 flat
do dièse ré dièse → fa dièse sol dièse la dièse → do dièse
ré bémol mi bémol sol bémol la bémol si bémol ré bémol
Table I. - Various subdivisions of a musical octave. In modern scales A (la) 3 = 440 Hz.
6
3. The pyramid of complexity

The concepts of complexity and hierarchy, sometimes expressed as myths or sym-
bols, are as old as mankind. Hierarchies perceived in the visible, human or natural
world were often viewed as projections or manifestations of hierarchies pre-existing
in an invisible, spiritual or archetypal world. Male and female deities interacting in
complex pantheons, together with a number of angels, devils and other spirits, were
supposed to explain natural and human events. Greeks and Romans went the farthest
both in personalizing human features (love, war, beauty, strength, wisdom, ...) and in
reducing the whole universe to a few basic entities (numbers with Pythagoras, ideas
with Plato, elements compounded by attraction and repulsion with Empedocles, and
eventually atoms driven by chance and necessity with Democritus). However, steps
intermediate between ultimate atoms and collective conscience (molecules, cells, ...)
remained unknown until the scientific discoveries that started in the 15th century and
flourished in the 20th century.
In the modern vision of the world, Brahman or ‘Ayn Soph is replaced by a fluctua-
ting subquantum vacuum, wherefrom all fields and particles emerge. The four letters
of the Tetragram (or four elements of Nature) are replaced by four physical forces at
the material level, and four nucleotide bases at the living level. Two of these forces
are long-ranged: the electromagnetic one, transmitted by photons, governs human-
scale and chemical phenomena, and the much weaker, gravitational force, transmitted
by gravitons, governs earthly and cosmic-scale phenomena. Other forces are short-
ranged and act at the nuclear level: the strong force (a hundred times stronger than
the electromagnetic one), transmitted by gluons, holds together protons and neutrons
in nuclei, and the weak force (a hundred times weaker), transmitted by w-bosons, is
responsible for the stability of neutrons. These forces are thought to be united at the
origin (the Big Bang) and much effort has been devoted to merging them into unified
equations.
In the following paragraphs we shall start with the so-called elementary particles
(not so elementary since there are quite a few of them and there is a whole chemistry
of their reactions and disintegrations), and recall how some of the most stable (nucle-
ons and electrons) build up a few scores of atoms, which constitute a kind of alphabet
that makes up all usual matter on earth. Then we shall recall how some of the mole-
cules (sentences) built up with a few of these atoms (letters) constitute a higher-level
alphabet which makes up all molecules of life (paragraphs). These molecules assem-
ble in cells (chapters), tissues, organisms (books), species, and ecosystems (libraries).
This evolving auto-organization process [22] follows three main rules. 1. - At each
level of complexity the forces that have driven the lower-level structures become less
relevant and new forces take over. 2. - The higher the level of complexity, the weaker
the driving force: nuclei are held together by the strong nuclear force (virtual gluon
exchange), atoms and molecules involve the weaker, electromagnetic force (virtual
photon exchange), while living organisms communicate by exchanging olfactive, au-
ditive or visual signals that act less by their energy than by their information content
7
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
(languages). 3. - At each level of complexity a new variety of structures emerge while

only a few of the structures that emerged at the lower level are retained: nucleons and
electrons to build atoms, some light non-metal atoms to built organic molecules, some
amino-acids and pyrimidic bases to build proteins and nucleic acids, some types of
organic cells to build living organisms, etc. (natural selection). The highest level of
complexity we have presently reached involves international organizations and cor-
porations using electronic communication (e-mail, internet, …), which continues the
lithosphere (matter) and biosphere (life) with a noosphere (spirit) [23].
The third law given above starts acting at the lowest level, since particles may con-
stitute complex systems without going through the steps of molecular structures and
living organisms: hydrogen is the main constituent of complex stars as the Sun, while
neutrons make up neutron stars; many stars drive a complex system involving planets
and satellites, comets and asteroids; and in turn they belong to galaxies as our Milky
Way. At the cosmic scale the first two laws given above make the very weak gravita-
tional force control the auto-organization process, although nuclear forces are still ef-
fective in the core of stars and the electromagnetic radiation in their immediate envi-
ronment. The rise of complexity along micro-structures is in fact conditioned by that
through macro-structures [24]: all elements heavier than hydrogen are synthesized in
the core of stars through nuclear fusion, then dispersed in the galaxy through super-
nova explosion, and later gathered in colder bodies as planet systems by the gravita-
tional force. It seems as if this whole process aims at producing life in the universe:
small changes in the original conditions, evolution laws, or universal constants would
not allow the process to be completed [25].
There is no equivalent of the fluctuating subquantum vacuum, which expresses in
modern terms the realm of some underlying, immanent Logos, to what was in ancient
times the ultimate, transcendent architect, Plato’s Demiurgos or the Bible’s Elohim. It
may be that, like in a Möbius strip or a Klein bottle, the transcendent and immanent
invisible worlds meet at some mysterious point perceivable only by great mystics …
or musicians, through privileged connections in their brain. Deciphering the music of
the successive levels of complexity would then be, in a renewed Pythagorean spirit,
another way of access to the natural order of the universe [15, 24].
4. Music of elementary particles

As traditional representations of the world involve three branches picturing the male,
female and neutral features of nature, particles are classified as Fermion half-integer
spin matter (electrons, protons, neutrons, muons, neutrinos, ...) or antimatter (posit-
rons, antiprotons, ...) and Boson full-integer spin particles (photons, mesons, gluons,
...). Some of these are perfectly stable (protons, electrons, neutrinos, photons, ...) or
relatively long-lived (neutrons: 16.9 min, muons: 2.2 x 10-6 sec) while others are very
short-lived (mesons, hyperons, τ > 10-12 sec) or unstable (resonances, τ < 10-15 sec),
and some have not been isolated (quarks, …). Nuclei of common matter are made of
protons and neutrons, and these latter disintegrate to a proton, an electron and a neut-
rino when they are isolated. Nowadays one considers a proton as being compounded
8
of three quarks resulting in spin 1/2 and charge 1 whereas a neutron is a compound of
three other quarks resulting also in spin 1/2 but charge 0. The gluons are made of two
quarks resulting in spin 1 and charge 0, while photons may result from the fusion of a
lepton and its antiparticle. In the present state of the art, basic entities are quarks,
electrons, neutrinos and the like, which make up nucleons and all other particles [26],
over two hundred of which have now been identified [27].
One of the main problems in high-energy physics is to rationalize the distributions
of the masses and other properties of "elementary" particles in a unified manner. In
1986 Sternheimer noticed [16] that if one associates musical frequencies to the mass
energies of these particles (using Weyl’s conjecture of natural scale invariance), one
observes musical triads (modulo an integer number of octaves) between the particles
formed by the collision of a meson and a baryon, or the disintegration of a meson or a
hyperon. This led him to make a detailed statistical analysis of the masses and life-
times of the stable, long-lived, short-lived, and resonance particles, and he found that
they gather into clusters following a regular distribution (Fig. 2) and obeying the set
of following laws, which he explained by the association of wave-packets to particles
together with the approximation of integer fractions by exponentials.
Fig. 2 - Histogram of the masses of elementary particles. In abscissa are gathered the masses
in Mev listed under, modulo 21/12 multiplicatively in order to bring them all about the mass of
the pions (137 MeV). The width and height are weighted according to particle stability. The
small insert is a musical transcription of a kaon (1) hitting a proton (2) and yielding a bunch
of particles (3) (after [16a, b], with permission).
1. – The masses of ‘long-lived’ elementary particles are with each other as musical
notes of the even tempered scale: m = m’.2 n/12 ; 2. – They form intervals whose con-
sonance is related to their stability: 2 n/12 = p/q, with p, q = 2a3b5c, b < 4, c < 2 (diato-
nic scales) ; 3. – Very short-lived particles and resonances can be included by using a
subdivision of the octave into 72 tempered intervals ; 4. – The statistical repartition of
the logarithms of particle masses follows a law involving two Gaussians, with coeffi-
cients and widths in the ratios: c’= c.121/2, λ’= λ / 121/2, respectively, multiplied by a
9
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
sinusoidal function with period Log 2 ; 5. – The intervals in particle disintegrations

follow statistically a binary scale, and the triads a pentatonic scale.
5. Music of atomic nuclei

Held by the attractive, strong nuclear force (which overcomes the electric repulsion),
protons and neutrons assemble to give nuclei, whose charge (the atomic number Z)
goes from 1 (for H) to 92 (for U) in natural elements - with a maximum of 137 in ar-
tificial elements - depending on the number of protons (Fig. 3). The number of neut-
rons, which is nought for a nucleus of light hydrogen (a bare proton) and one or two
for nuclei of heavy hydrogen (deuterium and tritium), is equal to the number of pro-
tons for the stable isotopes of those light elements making up biomolecules (C = 12,
N = 14, O = 16, S = 32) and grows faster than that of protons as Z increases, the total
number of protons and neutrons yielding the atomic mass A (e.g., Z = 92 while A ≅
238 or 235 for the main - stable and radioactive - isotopes of uranium). In addition to
Z and A, many nuclei are characterized by magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole
moments, which are expressed in terms of their total spin I. This latter results from
vector addition of the spins of the nucleons, yielding a periodic shell structure [28]
due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty and Pauli’s exclusion principles (e.g., I = 1/2, 1 or
3/2 for the three isotopes of hydrogen, 1H, 2D and 3T, but I = 0 for 4He as well as for
12
C, 16O, and 32S, while I = 1 for 14N).
It was recalled in §2 that music notes are characterized by a pitch and an intensity
(related to the frequency and the amplitude, then the energy, of an acoustic vibration)
and a duration: for a given intensity, the pitch can be considered as an intensive pro-
perty (as the pressure in thermodynamic systems) and the duration, as an extensive
property (as the volume). On the other hand, the total mass of a nucleus defines its
rest energy, Ac2, and can thus be considered as an intensive property, while its total
spin defines the number of states, 2I + 1, that it can take, and may be considered as an
extensive property. One may, of course, associate to all nuclei notes of even duration
by plotting either the mass or the spin as a function of atomic number, but it makes
more sense to associate to each nucleus a note whose frequency is proportional to A
and the length proportional to 2I + 1. In practice, as A increases monotonically with
Z, it is more convenient to use the mass increment from one nucleus to the next. We
have built a musical score describing the joint evolution of these two nuclear proper-
ties for the most common isotopes from hydrogen (1) to californium (98) throughout
the periodic table (Fig. 4). As this score is related to a very low level of complexity, it
is not expected to produce any aesthetic sensation in a human being.
We shall now proceed to higher levels of complexity and try to associate, at each
step, some of the features of musical notes recalled in § 2 to relevant physical proper-
ties. If the feeling to music is related to sensitivity of the unconscious to harmonies,
melodies, and rhythms built in the structure of the world, it is expected that musical
scores made with appropriate codes will sound more familiar when one goes up the
pyramid of complexity outlined in § 3.
10
Fig. 3 - Periodic table of the elements rearranged by Theodor Benfey [29] (numbers Z, A, I,
and valence number V, are not shown here). The rows of standard (rectangular) tables (e.g.,
[30]) are represented by spiral periods, and the columns, by spiral radii. The special element
series appear here as spiral derivations.
6. Music of chemical elements

The next step in complexity is that of atoms, the building blocks of common matter.
Contrary to what Democritus thought, they are not unsecable, but made of a central
nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons matching the nuclear protons. Repulsion
between the negative electrons is overcome by their attraction to the positive protons,
and the electron spins also combine vectorially, to yield again a periodic structure in
the periodic table (Fig. 3): electron shells are labelled as: 1s2; 2s2, 2p6; 3s2, 3p6; 4s2,
3d10, 4p6; 5s2, 4d10, 5p6; 6s2, 4f14, 5d10, 6p6; 7s2, 5f14, 6d10, etc., in the order of their
filling, the exponent being the maximal number of electrons allowed in a shell. For
instance, the electronic configuration of hydrogen is 1s1, that of helium, 1s2, that of
lithium, 1s22s1, ... , that of carbon, 1s22s22p2, ..., that of neon, 1s22s22p6, that of sod-
ium, (Ne)3s1, …, that of iron, (Ar)4s23d6, …, that of plutonium, (Rn)7s25f6, …, ele-
ments on a same column having similar configurations and properties (e.g., [31]).
11
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
5
250
4
200
3
Nuclear mass
150
Nuclear spin
2
100
50
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atomic number Atomic number
Fig. 4 - The music of atomic nuclei: the upper curves give the nuclear mass (left) and nuclear
spin (right) for the most stable - or common - isotopes. To build the musical score displayed
under, we have used for each nucleus the mass increment from the preceding nucleus.
Democritus thought that atoms are endowed with binding hooks allowing them to
form compounds. The modern version of this concept is valency, which is determined
12
by the electronic configuration of each atom tending to reach that of the closest noble
gas (last column of the periodic table). Thus, metals of the first three columns (Fig. 3)
are electron donor (with a single valency of 1 to 3) while atoms of the following co-
lumns tend to be more and more electron acceptor. Most non-metals (except O, F and
Si) have several valencies, as well as middle transition elements (IVb through VIII),
lanthanides, and the actinides. By analogy with the choice made for nuclei, we could
have used the total angular momentum multiplicity 2J + 1 in the lowest spectroscopic
state of the atom to represent the duration of a note in a musical transcription, but we
have found it more relevant to use the most common valency (V) for this purpose.
Also for atoms, the pitch of a note can be related to an energy. It may be the total
energy of the atoms along the periodic table (or its increment in order to extract the
oscillating component); or the ionization energy of an electron in a given shell (e.g.,
1s) or in the outermost shell (ionization potential IP) for the successive atoms; or the
attachment energy of an electron to the lowest unfilled shell (electron affinity EA); or
the successive ionization energies for a given, heavy atom (e.g., U). Compound pro-
perties such as Mulliken’s electronegativity EN = (IP + EA) / 2 or chemical hardness
CH = (IP - EA) / 2 can also be used. On the other hand, atomic spectroscopy provides
a wealth of line frequencies and line intensities for positive and negative ions as well
as for neutral atoms that could be used to define the pitch and duration, respectively,
of musical notes.
Using the code defined above, we have transcripted into musical scores the varia-
tions along the periodic table of IP, EA, EN, CH, and V for atoms from hydrogen (1)
to radon (86). Figure 5 displays the variations, with Z, of V (upper right), IP (upper
left), EN (lower left), and CH (lower right), which play an important role in chemical
bonding and reactivity. In rescaling electromagnetic to acoustic frequencies, we have
chosen the ionization potential of hydrogen (13.6 eV) as the unity and made it corres-
pond to the sound of middle A (la) (440 Hz). Valency 0 was interpreted as a quarter
rest, valency 1 as an eighth note, valency 2 as a quarter note, etc. Sequences of notes
corresponding to (higher energy) EN and (lower energy) CH have been gathered into
a common score, to be played with both right and left hands (following page).
Instead of using the binding energy of an electron from the highest occupied atomic
orbital (IP) or to the lowest unoccupied atomic orbital (EA) for a series of atoms of
the periodic table, one could also use the ionization energies of a series of electrons
from the valence to the core shells of a given atom, or the ionization energies of an
outer electron for progressively ionized atoms, or the total binding energy of the N
outer electrons for a given atom (N = 1, ..., Z). In Fig. 6 we display such a variation
for calcium (Z = 20) together with the finite derivative which enhances the variation.
The score yielded by the derivative (using notes of even duration) sounds more mea-
ningful than that yielded by the function. Now the lower score can be considered as
the finite derivative of the upper score. More generally, one could apply finite deriva-
tion or any other mathematical transformation to any known musical score, and obtain
a novel score which might reveal features hidden in the original score.
13
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
2.00 6.0
He
1.80
Ne 5.0
1.60
1.40
4.0
Ionization potential
Valence number
1.20 Ar
Kr
1.00 3.0
Xe
Hg Rn
0.80
Zn Cd
2.0
0.60
0.40 Tl
Ga In
Li Na 1.0
K Rb
0.20 Cs
Fr
0.00 0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
He He
5.00 5.00
Ne Ne
4.00 4.00
Ar
Chemical hardness
Electronegativity
Ar
Kr
Kr
3.00 Xe 3.00
Xe
Rn
Rn
2.00 2.00
Ga In Tl
Li Tl
1.00 Na 1.00 Ga In
K Rb Li Na
Cs
K Rb Cs
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fig. 5 - The music of chemical elements.

This page: variations of IP (but not EA), EN, CH, and V with Z, counterclockwise (data
are from Ref. [30]).
Next page: the score obtained by combining EN (pitch) and V (duration) on one hand,
and CH (pitch) and V (duration) on the other hand, according to the code outlined in the text
(in a few cases, hand crossing has been avoided to help piano playing). The conversion factor
used to bring atomic frequencies to audible frequencies was chosen so as to make hydrogen
"set the la". Other features of musical notes (such as strength) were not taken into account.
14
7. Musical patterns in molecular spectra

Atoms may combine according to their valency, to form molecules, clusters and crys-
tals. In covalent bonding (as in CH4, C6H6, CO2, H2O), atoms share electrons in pairs
that hold them together. In ionic bonding (as in HF or MgO), electrons transfer bet-
ween atoms and the resulting, opposite ions undergo electrostatic attraction. In dative
bonding (as in SO3), an electron pair from one atom is shared with another atom. In
metallic bonding (bulk metals), the loosely attached electrons of the outer shell form
a common pool that bonds the atoms together. Small periodic structures form clusters
and giant ones, crystals, that may be metallic, ionic (e.g., usual salt) or covalent (e.g.,
carbon in diamond or graphite). Since Avogadro first distinguished molecules from
15
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
atoms in 1811, close to twenty million molecules have been identified, over half of
them being organic.
10000.00 10000.00
2s
1s
1000.00 1000.00
Increment of ionization potential

2s
3s
Total ionization potential
2p
3s
100.00 100.00
3p 4s
10.00
Ca 10.00
Ca
4s
1.00 1.00
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25
Number of ionized electrons Number of ionized electrons
Fig. 6 - The music of calcium. Upper left, variation of the total binding energy of the N outer
electrons in Ca (N = 1, ..., ZCa); upper right, discrete derivative of this energy with respect to
N (data are from Ref. [32]). The corresponding musical scores are given below these curves,
up and down respectively.
We are now going to look at two sources of molecular data that have suggested a
musical transcription. The first one is taken from the field of molecular spectroscopy.
Excitations of electrons, as in atoms, and vibrations and rotations of nuclei in mole-
16
cules, provide a wealth of spectroscopic data that may be transcripted into musical
scores. The other example will be considered in the next section.
The spectrum of a molecule is a kind of identity card of the system. It tells which
energies it can absorb or emit when interacting with an electromagnetic field. These
energies can be given on the frequency scale, and therefore it is tempting to make a
direct transcription into audible sounds. However, two difficulties are on the way.
1. - These frequencies are generally completely outside the audible range, even in
spectra of lower frequencies such as those related to transitions between hyperfine
levels. Table II indicates typical frequencies related to the different degrees of free-
dom of a molecule. It is clear that some rescaling is needed.
2. - If a set of molecular lines are directly associated to audible sounds after some
kind of rescaling, that would likely be with no aesthetic interest, since the common
way to present the information consists in ordering line frequencies in decreasing or
increasing order. Some additional processing is therefore needed.
Degree of freedom ∆E / eV Wavelength / cm Frequency / Hz

-
Electronic * ~ 11 1.13 x 10 05 2.66 x 1015
-
Vibrational * ~ 0.52 2.38 x 10 04 1.26 x 1014
-
Rotational * ~ 0.015 8.26 x 10 03 3.63 x 1012
Electron spin ** ~ 0.58 x 10-05 2.14 x 10+01 1.40 x 1009
Nuclear spin ** ~ 3.14 x 10-09 3.95 x 10+04 0.76 x 1006
Table II. - The various frequencies that are associated to typical transitions in molecules. The
transition is said to be electronic when, under the influence of radiation, the change in struc-
ture takes place essentially among electrons. Vibrational and rotational transitions affect the
nuclear skeleton. Both types of particles also have a spin (like that of a rotating body). Data
with * refer to the hydrogen molecule H2, and data with ** to a free electron or free proton
spin in a magnetic field of 0.1 Tesla (1,000 Gauss).
Leach and Englert [17], in a musical transcription of the information contained in

the photoelectron spectrum of phosphabenzene / phosphoridine [33a] (Fig. 7), sugges-
ted to base this operation on differences between successive frequencies, in order to
get fluctuating numbers more likely to yield a meaningful musical score (as was done
for Zn, Fig. 6). We now analyze in detail how this operation is performed.
When a molecule is subjected to a flux of photons having an energy large enough
to detach one of its electrons, the kinetic energy of the ejected electron depends on its
binding energy to the molecule. For a given photon energy, a weakly bound electron
will come out with a larger kinetic energy than a strongly bound one. The analysis of
the kinetic energies of the outgoing electrons will then allow measuring their binding
energies, which are the ionization potentials Ii.
In the photoelectron spectrum of phosphabenzene given below, there is a series of
twelve peaks that are assigned to the detachment of electrons with increasing binding
energies, from left to right. These energies, in electron-volt, are reported in column 1
17
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
of Table III. To transform these data into a series involving fluctuations, Leach intro-
duces the finite differences ∆i = Ii+1 - Ii, which are converted into Hertz (column 2) by
using the equivalence relation: 1 eV = 2.418 x 1014 Hz. As such frequencies are com-
pletely outside the audible range (16 to 20,000 Hz), a further factor: k = 2.026 x 10-12,
is used in order to convert the ∆i’s into the audible frequencies given in column 3. By
looking in the equal temperament scale for the frequencies closest to these calculated
frequencies (column 4), one obtains the notes given in column 5.
Fig. 7 - The photoelectron spectrum of phosphabenzene (the molecule is shown in the upper
right corner). The excitation radiation comes from a discharge helium lamp. Twelve peaks are
observed, with various intensities. They make it possible to estimate the twelve ionization po-
tentials given in Table III (after [33a], with permission).
Exp. Ii / eV ∆Ii / Hz νi / Hz ν'i / Hz Note Duration

9.2 1.45 x 1014 294 294 D3 (Ré3) 8
9.8 4.84 x 1013 98 98 G1 (Sol1) 12
10.0 3.63 x 1014 735 740 F4s (Fa4#) 12
11.5 1.45 x 1014 294 294 D3 (Ré3) 10
12.1 2.42 x 1014 490 494 B3 (Si3) 8
13.1 3.39 x 1014 686 698 F4 (Fa4) 9
14.5 9.67 x 1013 196 196 G2 (Sol2) 12
14.9 9.67 x 1013 196 196 G2 (Sol2) 12
15.3 3.63 x 1014 735 740 F4s (Fa4#) 6
16.8 4.59 x 1014 931 932 A4s (La4#) 5
18.7 1.45 x 1014 294 294 D3 (Ré3) 3
19.3 --- --- --- --- ---
18
Table III. - The transformation of data from the photoelectron spectrum of phosphabenzene
into musical notes. Column 1 gives the measured ionization potentials in eV. Column 2 gives
the successive differences of ionization potentials in Hz. These latter are rescaled into audible
frequencies νi (column 3) by using the scaling factor k. The frequency ν'i of the closest note
in the even tempered scale is given in column 4. Column 5 gives the names of the notes in the
international (CDEFGABC) or roman (do ré mi fa sol la si do) notations, the frequency of A3
(la3) being assigned the value 440 Hz. Note durations (column 6) are taken proportional to
the intensities of the peaks in the spectrum, the unit being the sixteenth.
The transcription is not yet achieved. In order to assign a duration to each note Ni,
Leach takes it proportional to the intensity of peak Pi in the spectrum. The sequence
of notes obtained is given in Fig. 8. Englert [17] wrote compositions based on three
"musispectra" derived by Leach, using the experimental spectrum given above and
two theoretical spectra [33b]. Figure 9 displays a variation made by one of us (MR)
on this theme (the legends of these two scores are given in the next page).
19
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
Fig. 8 - Musical transcription of the experimental photoelectron spectrum of phosphabenzene.

The third note differs from that given in Ref. [17].
Fig. 9 – A variation on the musical theme given in Ref. [17].
The scientific literature provides a wealth of spectra yielding detailed information

in the various frequency ranges recalled in Table II. Recent experimental techniques
have considerably improved the accuracy of measured transition energies, intensities,
widths, and relaxation rates. Such spectra are awaiting musical transcription.
8. Musical patterns in biomolecular structures

The next step in complexity is the combination of molecules, to form aggregates or
polymers. In aggregates, molecules (or atoms) are held by weak (van der Waals) or
medium (hydrogen-bond) forces, whereas in polymers they are bonded by the stron-
ger, covalent or ionic forces. Plastics (as plexiglas) and fibres (as nylon) are the best
known industrial polymers (the first of these was discovered by Parkes in 1862). Par-
ticularly important are biological polymers: glucids and lipids (that store energy and
enter the structure of tissues), proteins (that constitute the tissues and are involved in
metabolism) and the nucleic acids DNA and RNA's (that store, transport and translate
the genetic information in the cells). Proteins are essentially made of several among
twenty amino-acids (Fig. 10) assembled in a specific order, and nucleic acids of four
among five nucleotide bases (Fig. 11). The genetic code is the procedure by which
sequences of three bases (codons) in the DNA of the cell nuclei are used to monitor,
through the two RNA's, the selection of amino-acids in the building of proteins at the
ribosome centres.
The deciphering of the genetic code was one of the major scientific and technolo-
gical advances in the last half-century. The recurrent molecular sequences occurring
in this code have suggested that a transcription into musical scores would be of inte-
rest, both for mnenotechnic and aesthetic purposes. The two sources of data are the
sequences of nucleotide bases in nucleic acids and of amino-acids in proteins. Seve-
ral attempts have been made to device codes of correspondence between the four or
twenty molecular components of these biopolymers and the twelve notes of the even
tempered musical scale. This will be our second example of transcription of molecu-
lar data into musical scores.
The first suggestion of such transcriptions was made by Douglas Hofstadter [18, p.
519]: “Imagine the mRNA to be like a long piece of magnetic recording tape, and the
ribosome to be like a tape recorder. As the tape passes through the playing head of the
recorder, it is "read" and converted into music, or other sounds …. When a "tape" of
mRNA passes through the "playing head" of the ribosome, the "notes" produced are
aminoacids and the pieces of music they make up are proteins”. And further (p. 525):
“Music is not a mere linear sequence of notes. Our minds perceive pieces of music on
a level far higher than that. We chunk notes into phrases, phrases into melodies,
20
melodies into movements, and movements into full pieces. Similarly, proteins only
make sense when they act as chunked units. Although a primary structure carries all
the information for the tertiary structure to be created, it still "feels" like less, for its
potential is only realized when the tertiary structure is actually physically created”.
Fig. 10 - The formulas, names, symbols, and molecular weights of the twenty amino-acids of
various kinds making up all proteins (after [34], with permission).
The abundance of web sites on DNA and protein music [e.g., 19c, 20c] is a mark of
the present impact of this concept. In this brief review we will not consider the more
controversial topic of the possible effects of such music on living species (plants, ani-
mals, or humans). The present review only aims at outlining the technical procedures
used for musical transcription from scientific data. A recent book by Fukagawa [19b]
describes some of the proposals made to translate structural information taken from
biopolymers into music. We will examine these proposals, which were not all made
for musical purposes but also as a simple memorizing technique.
The first attempt appears to be that of Hayashi and Munakata [20a].These authors
start from the well-known Watson-Crick structure of DNA, which is a succession of
21
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
pairs of bases linking the two chains of the double helix. The four bases, adenine (A),
cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T), are always associated in the same way, A
with T and G with C (Figure 11). DNA sequencing produces long sequences such as
CAGCCTGACTG ..., and one sequence is enough to tell us what is the sequence of
the adjoining chain, because of the associative law. In order to "minimize the distress
of handling such information", these authors propose to associate the note A (la) with
A, E (mi) with C, D (ré) with G, and G (sol) with T. The experience of the authors is
that the stretch that they could memorize by using this transcription increases at least
threefold. They do not claim this music has any aesthetic value.
Fig. 11 - A flattened representation of the DNA double helix structure, showing the associa-
tion of complementary base pairs, A-T and G-C, in the middle, and double sugar-phosphate
backbone, on both sides (after [34], with permission).
The following proposal for musical transcription is that of Ohno and Jabara [20b].
They adopted a very simple rule: each base is assigned two successive values of the
musical scale. However this is not enough to produce a musical score. The key, the
mode and the rhythm are suggested by comparison with well-known pieces of classi-
cal music. Figure 12 gives an example of such a transcription.
We now come to the most ambitious enterprise, that of Joël Sternheimer [19a]. The
material that is used here is the structure of proteins. Figure 10 gives the formulas of
the twenty amino-acids making up these biopolymers, with their names and two com-
mon abbreviations used to designate them. An important information is the molecular
weight (mw), also given in Figure 10.
A feature of these weights that was noticed by Sternheimer is that they cluster into
groups. Now a frequency ν is associated to each weight m through the relations:
22
Fig. 12 - The beginning of a musical composition inspired by a coding sequence by Ohno and
Jabara [20b]. Each group of three bases makes up a codon associated with an amino-acid.
ν = V/λ, λ = h/mv, V = c2/v,

where λ is de Broglie's wavelength of the particle, v its thermal (or cell-constrained)
velocity, and V the corresponding phase velocity (h being Planck’s constant and c,
the velocity of light). An estimate of the frequencies thus associated to amino-acids
shows that they are far above the audible range, a circumstance that was met before
and whose remedy is rescaling (here by 76 octaves). Due to the clustering of masses,
only ten notes are retained. Adopting the shortest notation (Fig. 10), we write the fol-
lowing correspondence:
G (mw: 75) A2 (la2)
A (mw: 89) C3 (do3)
S (mw: 105) E3 (mi3)
P, V, T, C (mw: 115, 117, 119, 121) F3 (fa3)
L, I, N, D (mw: 131, 131, 132, 133) G3 (sol3)
Q, E, K, M (mw: 146, 146, 147, 149) A3 (la3)
H (mw: 155) B3 flat (si3 bémol)
F (mw: 165) B3 (si3)
R, Y (mw: 174, 181) C4 (do4)
W (mw: 204) D4 (ré4)
23
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
Here again there are additional rules in order to determine the key, the mode and
the rhythm of a musical transcription. Figure 13 gives an example of a transcription
for a protein using this code [19a]. We refer to the book by Fukagawa [19b] for other
examples, and for a discussion of the alleged effects of such "protein music" on plant
growing or medical healing.
Fig. 13 - Transcription made by Joël Sternheimer [19a] of a protein belonging to the human
respiratory chain. According to the author, music does not only reflect the inner structure of
proteins: it can also act on protein synthesis at the cellular level. Therefore it should not be
played without special care or expert assistance!
In the last two paragraphs we have reviewed some of the schemes proposed to pro-
duce music from spectral or structural information of various types of molecules. This
is possible only because such data are, in most cases, not distributed at random: there
are hidden regularities, whose perception may be enhanced by musical transcription.
This topic can be considered as taking place in the wide area known as "pattern reco-
gnition". It is often easier for us to recognize a pattern from an auditive transcription
than from a visual picture.
Another development linking biomolecules to music is worth mentioning [35]. It is
the possibility for a computer to identify a piece of music from just a few notes: an
algorithm translates the notes according to pitch and duration and compares the infor-
mation to a bank of data in memory. This algorithm is similar to that used to identify
a DNA structure starting from the knowledge of a particular sequence of bases.
9. Music in the living world and biological rhythms

The crossing point between biomolecules and living cells is micro-viruses, which are
organized aggregates of biopolymers that may be put into crystallized form. Living
24
cells are the next step in complexity: standard cells are made up of a nucleus (which
contains the chromosomes, bearing genes made of DNA bits), a cytoplasm (which
contains the ribosomes, RNA chains and the architecture and machinery of the cell),
and a membrane (made up of multilayers of lipoproteins, which control exchanges
between the inside and outside of the cell). Just as quarks, electrons and neutrinos
make up all elementary particles, including nucleons, and as these latter - together
with electrons - make up all atoms, which constitute common matter, and just as nuc-
leotidic bases and amino-acids make up nucleic acids and proteins, respectively, cells
make up tissues and organs of living organisms. Sets of interfecondable organisms
constitute living species, which may coexist in ecosystems. It is believed that all the
species have evolved along a same phylum. At all these stages, musical transcriptions
can be searched through the space and time scales and rhythms of the structures and
dynamics of the systems.
The biological rhythms in human beings and other evolved species are probably
connected to rhythms in the lower hierarchical structures as well as to natural cyclic
phenomena in their environment. The most obvious of these are the daily succession
of light and darkness and the yearly succession of hot and cold seasons: this latter has
inspired one of Vivaldi’s compositions. However, there are other natural cycles at va-
rious time scales, such as the periods of spin and orbital rotations of the Sun, planets
(including the Earth) and satellites (including the Moon), or the eleven-year cycle of
solar activity. But the rhythms of evolved species also have their specific time scales:
for instance, the respiratory and cardiac cycles, and other cycles revealed by various
electrophysiograms (EEG, ERG, ECG, ESG) [36]. A recent discipline has emerged:
the search for correlations between the behaviour of living species and cycles present
in their environment. To quote one of practical interest, the efficiency of medicines
(e.g., melatonin) may vary with the time at which they are taken. This observation has
motivated the creation of a methodology called chronobiology [37].
The following table shows the frequency ranges (in cycles per min or Hz) of the
physiological rhythms of a few human organs, together with average frequencies as-
sociated with some musical tempos (see § 2). The most common tempos are more or
less tuned to heart beats, while brain waves δ (deep sleep) cover the whole range.
Stomach Lung breath Heart beat Brain Brain Brain waves

wave wave δ wave θ α and β
3-4 12-20 60-110 0.5-4 Hz 4-8 Hz α: 8-13 Hz
p. min. p. min. p. min. β: 13-30 Hz
Largo Adagio Andante Moderato Allegro Prestissimo
≅ 50 ≅ 60 ≅ 80 ≅ 110 ≅ 140 ≅ 200
That plants may be sensitive to music was surmised by several people: for instance
Charles Darwin, who explained the phototropism of plants, tried the effect of violin
on their growth. More recently, Joël Sternheimer [19] claimed to improve the growth
25
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
of tomatoes or the production of oxygen by green algae by making them hear music
composed, according to his code, on the sequences of amino-acids of the enzymes in-
volved, thus avoiding irreversible genetic modification. Most animals are sensitive to
music, especially cats and dogs. It is claimed that milk production can be improved
by making cows hear classical music. Dolphins can emit a number of musical sounds
(they might have been the sirens heard by Ulysses). The singing of the birds (former-
ly seen as incarnated angels from Heaven) has fascinated poets, scientists, and musi-
cians [38]. The singing patterns of a nightingale, a cuckoo and a quail are reproduced
by a flute, a clarinet and an oboe in the second movement of the Pastoral Symphony
by Beethoven. Many other composers (Janequin, Couperin, Daquin, Rameau, Migot,
Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Prokoviev, Messiaen) have written pieces directly inspired
by bird singing [39].
Fig. 14 - Typical songs of two different varieties of a same bird species (after [39]): to the left
the striped troglodyte and to the right, the white troglodyte.
Song is especially used by birds as a "cultural barrier" when calling for intercourse
within their own species [40]. Figure 14 displays typical songs of two different varie-
ties of a same bird species [39]. It can be seen on these scores that one of the varieties
has a more rhythmic song pattern and the other variety, a more melodic song pattern.
10. The music of the spheres

Following another path of bifurcation in the hierarchy of complexity, one may now
proceed from matter particles to the Earth and the Solar System, the Milky Way (that
contains about as many stars - a hundred billion - as there are cells in a human brain),
and the whole Universe. This latter involves regular stars (some with planets, satelli-
tes, asteroids and comets), neutron stars and dust clouds, which make up galaxies and
clusters, and such strange objects as quasars, pulsars or black holes …. The regularity
of the distribution of planets in our solar system has inspired to Greek philosophers a
correspondence with the musical scale that Kepler (who set up the laws of planetary
motion) called the ''harmony of the spheres''. By transposing the orbital velocities of
26
all the known planets, he obtained the following basic melodies, going from a sharp
soprano for Mercury to a deep bass for Saturn [15a].
The Pythagorean view of the universe was present very early in the search for rela-
tions between integers in specific sets of astronomical data. One of the most famous
successes of the methodology was the discovery, in the 18th century, that the average
radii rn of planet orbits around the Sun obey a simple relation, the Titius-Bode's law:
rn = 0.4 + 0.3 x 2n-2 AU.
Here AU stands for the astronomic unit (not to be confused with the atomic unit au):
it is the yearly average of the Sun-Earth distance (149.6 Mkm). The law holds only
for n taking the values 2, 3, 4, ..., starting from Venus; for Mercury r1 = 0.4. The fol-
lowing table compares the predictions of the law with measured radii [41].
Planet rank rn (meas.) rn (calc.) Mass

Mercury 1 0.387 - 0.0558 (0)
Venus 2 0.723 0.7 0.8150 (0)
The Earth 3 1.000 1.0 1.0000 (1)
Mars 4 1.524 1.6 0.1074 (2)
Asteroid rings 5 2.805 (average) 2.8 no estimate
Jupiter 6 5.203 5.2 317.893 (16)
Saturn 7 9.539 10.0 95.147 (17)
Uranus 8 19.182 19.6 14.54 (5)
Neptune ? 30.058 - 17.23 (2)
Pluto 9 39.440 38.8 0.0017 (1)
Table IV. - Average radii of planet orbits (in astronomical units) as measured and calculated
(according to Bode's law), together with the mass and number of known satellites (in paren-
theses) for each planet (in units of the Earth mass, 5.976 * 1015 Gkg). Although many astro-
nomers today consider this law as accidental, optimizing its two parameters yields a quasi-
perfect fit, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9997.
Two features in this table deserve comments: 1. - There is no planet corresponding

to n = 5, that is, to r5 = 2.8 AU. However, there is a belt made up of several asteroid
rings approximately at this distance from the Sun. This suggests that the asteroid belt
might be the embryo of a planet in formation, or the remnants of a planet that was hit
27
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
by some celestial object. 2. - Neptune appears as an intruder in this series, since r9 fits
better Pluto’s orbital radius. Integer ratios connected to musical beats have also been
searched [10] in the distributions of satellites around planets and in the disposition of
the asteroid nodes in Brouwer’s diagram.
There are other recognized occurrences of integer numbers in the periods of bodies
of the solar system [41]. For instance, the orbital periods of planets, or satellites of a
given planet, are often in simple ratios: 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, etc. For a ratio 1/2, this means
that the two bodies go back regularly to the same configuration with respect to the
centre of mass. This entails an amplification of the gravitational interaction, which
may stabilize the configuration against external perturbations and make the resonance
stable. One may also quote the three-body stable resonance discovered by Laplace
between three of the satellites of Jupiter: Io, Europe and Ganymede. If n1, n2 and n3
are their respective numbers of orbitations within a given duration, they satisfy the
simple relation:
n1 + n3 - 3n2 = 0.
As with spectroscopic and structural data of microscopic systems (§ 5-8), there is a

wealth of numerical data available in these macroscopic systems, which await musical
interpretation. For the time being, musicians (as poets and philosophers) simply get in-
spiration from watching a starred sky (cf. the number of Nocturne pieces) or from the
knowledge that we have on our solar system (e.g., Impressions of two space travellers
by one of us, MR). Astronomers sometimes also use music to help their audience get a
feeling of the cosmic order [42].
11. Music in the human realm

Man (Homo sapiens) may be the last evolved species that has appeared on the Earth,
about a hundred thousand years ago. For the Greek physician Empedocles, he is like
a projection, or representation (microcosmos), of the whole universe (macrocosmos);
for Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things, visible and invisible". Therefore he
should be able to perceive and transcript music of his inner world as well as from the
outer world, in a proceeding somehow complementary to science.
However, human individuals may have different sensitivities to such musical fea-
tures as harmony, melody, rhythm. Accordingly, Leone Bourdel [43] has classified
human temperaments as "harmonic", "melodic", "rhythmic", and "composite". She
relates them to blood groups A, O, B, and AB, respectively, as well as to the age in
life, split into seven-year periods. The general outlook and behaviour, modality of
adaptation, style of drawing, and professional preferences, are shown to depend on
the temperaments so defined. This is, of course, just one of the numerous classifica-
tions of temperaments into four main types since Hippocrates. But the fact that, now,
it relates to both music sensitivity and blood group evokes Joël Sternheimer’s claim
that music can act directly on the synthesis of proteins at the cellular level [19a]. This
author also claims that man-made music often instinctively involves motives that are
28
embedded in scores built from amino-acid sequences of specific enzymes [19b], such
as prolactin in some of Mozart’s pieces or actin in Vivaldi’s Four seasons (Fig. 15).
One might go further and wonder whether works of great composers do not reflect the
complex physico-chemical structure of their brain.
Fig. 15 - An extract of Vivaldi’s Spring (upper) compared to that of a transcription of an

enzyme entering human and other vertebrates metabolism (lower) (after [19b]).
Different events in human life call for different kinds of music. Folk songs express
the soul of people, religious songs, their spirituality, wedding marches (e.g., Mendels-
sohn in Midsummer Night’s Dream) the accomplishment of wedding, battle songs (e.
g., the French anthem) the spring to combat, triumphal marches (e.g., Verdi in Aida)
the euphoria of victory, funeral marches (e.g., that of Chopin) the sorrow of burial.
Music is a language that can express what spoken languages overlook while it is al-
ready involved in ordinary languages [44]: a same sentence may be affirmative, inter-
rogative, or negative depending on its melodic and rhythmic pattern. Music styles,
modes and scales used in various periods and regions of the world [45] reflect peo-
ple’s traditions, cultures, and values [46]. Just as language, music in the human realm
has produced an enormous variety of creations [47].
Music relates to other arts. For the Greeks there was identity between poetry and
melody, and nowadays music is an essential ingredient in operas as well as in other
shows, including silent movies. The music of a thriller is not that of an epopee, a co-
medy, or a love story. Relations are also found between music and the plastic arts, es-
pecially architecture [8, 48]: this is not surprising since, as we have seen, the archi-
tecture of biomolecules can already be expressed in musical terms. On the other hand
29
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
the architecture of the patterns of various kinds of musical scores has been analysed
from both points of view of mathematics and psychology [49].
Music is used in physical training, mental relaxation, advertising and sale (elevator
music). It helps develop emotional intelligence [11] and can be used to bring children
to overcome some educational problems. It plays an increasing role in soft medicine
techniques [14] and recent observations have shown that it can yield short remissions
in such mental illnesses as the Alzheimer disease [14c]. On the other hand, violent or
lascive music can lead to mimetic behaviour. In 1998 researchers from Hong Kong
have shown that music learning can improve verbal memory, and in 2001 scientists
from Leipzig discovered that musical syntax is analyzed by the same cortex areas as
spoken language, more on the left side of the brain (which controls the right hand) for
speech and more on the right side (left hand) for music.
The main aim of music nowadays is, of course, entertainment. However its ancient
use in magic rituals, and its modern use in collective events to stimulate specific feel-
ings, manifest a power that can overcome that of speech [50]. Great founders of reli-
gion obviously preferred speech to music, but great kings of Israel composed music
and poetry. It is significant that real totalitarian rulers had somehow an official com-
poser (Wagner, Prokoviev, but also Lully for the absolute monarch Louis XIV) while
all western music was banned by the Talibans. In the 5th century BC Confucius had
written: "If one wished to know if a kingdom is well governed and if its habits are
good or bad, the quality of its music will tell the answer". About the same period, in
another part of the world, Plato wrote: "Let I make the songs of a nation, and I will
not care about whom makes its laws".
For the Chinese as for the Greeks, and later on for the Christian church, music can
improve or corrupt and therefore must be submitted to ethical rules [51]. One had to
wait till the beginning of the 20th century and the two world wars, with the German
social scientists Max Weber [52] and Theodor Adorno [53], for the first systematic
studies to appear on the relations between music and society. Western musical ratio-
nality has been seen as a product of Christian paradigm via scientific and economic
development [54]. Now music is an essential part of the humming life of the web.
12. Conclusion
We have reached the end of our journey, from the depths of elementary particles to
the heights of cosmic and human complexity, with music as a leading thread. Those
who heard the pieces displayed in this paper at the evening session where the talk
was given noticed that the higher was the degree of complexity, the more familiar
sounded the music. But the fact that Hayashi and Munakata [20a] could memorize
sequences of nucleotide bases in nucleic acids much more easily by series of sounds
than by series of letters points to a possibility of using musical transcription in pattern
recognition. Even in the simple field of molecular spectroscopy, Leach and Englert
[17] showed that the degrees of resemblance of various calculated spectra to a given
measured spectrum could be more easily compared by using musical transcription,
30
concluding that "the musical transcription method may provide a diagnostic means
whereby a fine ear can tell which of a series of calculated spectra is the best", and
recommending (humoristically) that "every serious laboratory of photoelectron spec-
troscopy should recruit a composer". It appears indeed that music provides a more
holographic view of patterns that are entangled in regular space, somehow like repre-
sentations in momentum space.
The problems of enhancing curve resolution, extracting signal from noise, recogni-
zing hidden similarities, or deconvoluting entangled patterns, have received renewed
attention with the theories of chaos (e.g., [55]), where seemingly random shapes can
be ruled by rigorous non-linear equations. Differentiation (usually of second order),
either analogical (in such experiments as magnetic resonance) or numerical (using
data sets), can reveal tiny features (as shell effects) hidden in a monotonic trend (e.g.,
[56a]). But signal enhancement may be competed by noise enhancement (e.g., [56b]),
and other techniques, such as Fourier analysis (e.g., [57]), can then be used. Similari-
ty recognition is a process that takes place at every level of life, from protein building
to sexual selection. For simple systems, relevant mathematical models involve such
concepts as quasi-symmetry or syntopy [58, 59]. Musical transcription could find a
heuristic place to complement these approaches, as we shall see in the next example.
The transcendent number π (originally, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to
its diameter in Euclidean space) plays a central role in all areas of physics, mathema-
tics, and statistics. Its earliest evaluations (3.1 +) go back to the Babylonians and the
Egyptians (2,000 BC), while the first accurate decimals were derived by Archimedes
(3.142 -, 250 BC) and Liu Hui (3.14159, 264 AD). Between the 15th and the 19th cen-
turies, the number of decimals increased from 14 (Al-Kashi, 1429) to 527 (William
Shank, 1874). The first thousand decimals were reached in 1949, the first million, in
1973, and the first billion, in 1989. In 1995 Kanada computed over 6 billion decimals
of π. Various approximate geometric constructions, as well as rational and algebraic
approximations, were proposed together with a number of (more or less convergent)
infinite sums and products and definite integrals, yielding numbers involving π [60].
The most famous of these sums takes the closed form (Euler’s formula) [61]:
eiπ = -1,
which relates the real and imaginary units 1 and i and the two transcendent numbers
π and e, which one plays a central role in various processes in physics, chemistry, and
biology (where it expresses the linear variation of a property with its previous value).
Because it relates the circle (featuring the Heaven in most traditions) to the square
(featuring the Earth), and because it occurs in those simple mathematical expressions,
the number π has fascinated scientists and mystics alike [62]. One of the main issues
was whether its decimals are distributed at random or in a certain hidden order [60].
As there seems to be no reason why basis 10 should be privileged, the decimals were
computed in many other bases, including 2 (400 billion decimals by Bellard in 1996),
3 to 9, 12, 15, 20, 60, and even the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and 22 letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. In several languages meaningful sentences are given to memorize
31
SCIENCE AND MUSIC
the first decimals of π, e.g.: "Now, I want a drink alcoholic of course after the heavy
chapters involving quantum mechanics". But the search for a one-to-one correspon-
dence between figures and letters aims at disclosing an implicit order from the appa-
rent chaos of decimal sequences found by statistical tests.
In fact there is no reason why the decimals of π should be distributed at random. In
Euler’s basis with variable step (1/3, 2/5, 3/7, …), π takes the simple form: 2.222 …
It also appears that among the 6.44 billion decimals computed by Kanada in basis 10
odd figures are slightly (but systematically) more frequent than even figures. In the
following we give the first 1,000 decimals of π in basis 7 and a meaningful musical
score arranged from the first 36 figures [60].
Fig. 16 - Two representations of π: upper, the first 1,000 decimals in basis 7; lower, a musical
composition in diatonic scale devised using the first scores of these figures (from Ref. [60]).
32
If you have a piano, play it; and you may feel cosmos emerging out of chaos ….
Acknowledgements
This research was encouraged and sponsored by the European Academy and ICF.
Professors Raymond Daudel, Sydney Leach, Michel Tronc, David Avnir (Jerusalem,
Israel), Bulent Atalay (Fredericksburg, VA), Jean-Louis de Lannoy (Toronto, ON),
and Drs Greg Breland (Bridgeport, CT), Guy Buchholtzer (Vancouver, BC), David
Eaton (New York Symphony Orchestra), Eric Emery-Hellwig (Grandvaux, Switzer-
land), Dimitrios Lekkas (Athens, Greece), Bernard Marichal (Brussels, Belgium), and
in France Laurent Dukan, Claude Gaudeau, Yorgos Koussanellos, Christian Langlois,
Edith Lecourt and Joël Sternheimer, are acknowledged for their cooperation. Doctor
Alexander Kuleff (Sofia, Bulgaria) was of great help in transcripting nuclear and ato-
mic properties into musical notes.
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SCIENCE AND MUSIC
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