ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS RELEASE

RAS PR 17/30 (NAM 13)

3^rd July 2017

A project that explores whether there is a musical equivalent to the curvature of spacetime will be presented on Thursday 6^th July by Gavin Starks at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull.

Starks, who has a background in radio astronomy and electronic music, been working on developing an ‘acoustic cosmology’ for more than 20 years in collaboration with Prof Andy Newsam of Liverpool John Moores University. Their aim is to test whether mathematical relationships that describe cosmology and quantum mechanics can be applied to a sonic universe, or ‘soniverse’.

Starks explains: “If we look at the way that music has evolved from mediaeval plainsong to the algorithms that generate current chart-hits, we can see parallels developing in the way we describe music and descriptions of our perception of the universe. We can now create new types of sound from scratch – electronic sounds that simply couldn’t have existed before. It leads us to think about a digital sound world that we can’t enter, because it physically doesn’t exist. The question is – what next? 

“We are starting to develop completely new forms of manipulating the microstructure of sound, as well as the macroenvironment in which we experience it. This raises questions about whether we can create a soniverse based on a set of fundamental equations, in the same way that we can create mathematical models of the universe.”

Starting with a single wavelength ‘sonon’, a fundamental particle in the soniverse equivalent to a photon, Starks has attempted to define its properties and the physics that may apply to it. The project’s initial model of ‘wave-time’ has three independent dimensions: the individual sonon wavelength, instrument time (the duration that an individual instrument plays) and performance time (duration equal to the length of an individual piece).

Some of the relationships explored to date are causal (i.e. the physics is consistent within the soniverse) and some are aesthetic (i.e. they describe a subjective musical construct). Many have direct parallels in the physical universe. For example, the listener in the soniverse is analogous to the observer in quantum mechanics: a sonon is only rendered musical or not when it is heard.  A temporal gravity allows the clustering of sonons to create rhythms or musical phrases. Wave-time can be bent by clusters of sonons, in the same way that gravity distorts space-time in the universe.

Starks believes that bringing together cutting-edge science and understanding of musical structure creates the opportunity for discovery: “There’s a long common history between physics and music, for instance people built columns in cathedrals at a height linked to the resonant frequency, even before they understood the nature of pressure dynamics. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon that art and science are treated as different disciplines. By bringing them back together, and creating a common language, we can find different ways of interpreting and thinking about both music and cosmology.”

Newsam adds: “As astronomers, our experience of the universe is essentially visual – images, graphs, and so on. With the soniverse, we hope to create a new way to appreciate the cosmos, using our instinctive grasp of music and tone to explore relationships between different objects and cosmological models.”

Media contacts

NAM press office

Robert Massey, Royal Astronomical Society, rm@ras.org.uk

Anita Heward, Royal Astronomical Society, anitaheward@btinternet.com

Morgan Hollis, Royal Astronomical Society, mh@ras.org.uk

Science contacts

Gavin Starks, Dgen, binarydust.org, gavin@dgen.net, @agentGav

Andy Newsam, Professor of Astronomy Education and Engagement, Director of the National Schools’ Observatory, Liverpool John Moores University, andy@schoolsobservatory.org.uk

Multimedia

Blog post with embedded player, video and more information: http://www.binarydust.org/2017/05/18/listen-to-the-radio-cube-of-the-antennae-galaxies/ 

This data-cube is based on an optical image of the “Antennae Galaxies” colliding, as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and a radio-image taken by ALMA. Each pixel actually represents a spectrum of frequencies across the electromagnetic radio spectrum

The data-cube works in two ways.

• Firstly, the radio frequencies have been transformed into visible colours, so you can see a slice of the cube.
• Secondly, the electromagnetic spectrum has been transformed into an acoustic spectrum. Remember light≠sound: the frequency of electromagnetic radiation (‘light’) has been transformed into a frequency of pressure wave (sound).

By clicking the image and moving your cursor around you can “play” a spectrum of the colliding galaxies. Underneath, you can see a visual representation of the frequency spectrum. Spend some time moving slowly around the red(redshifted) areas – there is a surprising richness to the harmonics for such a simple sonification.

Note: the data-cube is 8MB and could take between 20 seconds to several minutes to appear if you are on a slow connection.

Audio

Inspired by the discovery of the first double-pulsar system (ranked as the 6th most important scientific discovery of 2004), and specially written to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RT32 – a reclaimed 32m Radio Telescope in the middle of the Latvian forests (the VIRAC Radio Telescope in Irbene) brought to life over a decade, after being trashed by the Soviet military, as the only radio telescope in the world that is dedicated to both science and art. 

The full name of the piece is ds² – series 1 (PSR J0737-3039B) http://www.binarydust.org/2010/01/04/ds2-series-1/ 

Further information:

Further information on the project can be found at: http://www.binarydust.org/2017/01/27/escape-into-the-multiverse/

Notes for editors

Running from 2 to 7 July, the RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2017 (NAM 2017, http://nam2017.org) takes place this year at the University of Hull. NAM 2017 will bring together around 500 space scientists and astronomers to discuss the latest research in their respective fields. The conference is principally sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

T: http://twitter.com/rasnam2017

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS, www.ras.org.uk), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

T: https://twitter.com/royalastrosoc

F: https://facebook.com/royalastrosoc

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC, www.stfc.ac.uk) is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and has a broad science portfolio and works with the academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics, alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.

STFC’s Astronomy and Space Science programme provides support for a wide range of facilities, research groups and individuals in order to investigate some of the highest priority questions in astrophysics, cosmology and solar system science. STFC’s astronomy and space science programme is delivered through grant funding for research activities, and also through support of technical activities at STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre and RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. STFC also supports UK astronomy through the international European Southern Observatory.

T: https://twitter.com/stfc_matters 

“In celebration of a new installation of work by glass artist Dr Shelley James, The Hospital Club presents a panel discussion about the science and art of data.

Join Professor Arthur I Miller, author of Colliding Worlds: How cutting edge science is redefining contemporary art, and I, for a conversation chaired by Professor Barry Smith, Director of the Institute of Philosophy at UCL.”

Book tickets (or email me for guest tickets)

Dr James work plays with the optical and material properties of glass to create compelling geometries and illusions of space.

To celebrate the news:

Click the green flag and press S to start …. then press space bar to launch Philae. Arrow keys for left and right. Up arrow for thrust. If it all goes weird, hit R to reset.
Hit the red landing site to get points, but not too fast or you’ll pop! You have limited fuel, so try and get as many points as you can before you run out.

Class notes:
This project was written in Nov 2014 by my seven year-old son and I for fun. We used it (about 2 months ago) to teach his class of 18 seven year old kids about the Rosetta mission.

After watching the ESA video, and some narrative from me, they played this game. After about 10 minutes we went “inside the game” to let them edit the code (e.g. size of comet, speed, etc.), and draw their own Philae (which they loved). The game is deliberately more like lunar lander as I thought it was a bit too much to do a full gravitational and trig-based model with that age group!

Key learning outcomes for the class:

• What comets are.
• We sent a spaceship to a comet: it was an amazing achievement.
• That the spaceship was controlled by software, and we can make something like it.
• That we can “see inside” a game.
• That we can edit it to make it our own version.
• That we can draw our own things.
• They also got an idea of what stop-frame animation is.

My favourite moment was when I said “we’re now going to go inside the game” and they all looked amazed – one turned and said “are we going to hack into it?!” – to which I said “yes”, of course.

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/60406286 to see the code/copy/modify as you wish.

Update

News about the end of Rosetta’s mission

My slides from O’Reilly’s Strata conference “Making Data Work” today.

I described some of AMEE’s journey: through open data aggregation and distribution, accessibility, provenance,  and structure. But better data isn’t enough – no one (well, a few) really cares about the science or the technology. We need to engage with stakeholders to provide meaningful insight and relevance to their business. AMEE will be launching a new initiative this year to create an environmental score for every company in the UK.

[repost of my AMEE post on Energy Identity]

Since AMEE’s inception in 2005, we have recognised that the emerging sets of data needed for carbon calculation and energy assessment present huge privacy issues.

Combined with the automation of data capture through smart-meters, mobiles, purchases and other “digital identity” sources there is a real need to address some fundamental issues.

As we help to glue together the instrumented world, what are the outcomes and what are the risks?

Energy Identity = The digital embodiment of
your physical consumption

(from slide 32 of my eTech presentation)

This concept applies to everything from individuals to businesses to countries, a product to a supply-chain, a home to a bank.

Issues include;

1. Data ownership
2. Data privacy
3. Data portability (sharing) and control

The good news is that we’ve “seen this movie before”. In the 1990s we stumbled online, throwing our digital identity information all over the place, in an unstructured manner, and didn’t consider these points until it was too late. Initiatives such as OpenID and OAuth are only now trying to re-invent control mechanisms to address what we all need.

With energy, we have an opportunity to pre-emptively declare the rules of engagement. Some activity is already evident in this space (e.g. Google Powermeter testifing to congress). In the UK, since we have the UK Government as a client, I was able to seed some of these ideas some time ago (the UK is also gifted with the presence of MySociety).

To summarise, the issues include:

1. Data ownership

This should really default to you/your business (i.e. the source of the consumption).

The EULA of your service provider should ensure that you own your data and have expressly given permission to use it. Standard stuff really, but we’re a long way from that in this emerging dataverse.

From AMEE’s perspective, when we hold your data it’s subject to the EULA of the provider you are coming through (e.g. Dopplr) and defaults to you otherwise.

2. Data privacy

As with other services, the default should be to use a series of seperate silos.

AMEE holds each client’s data in separate silos (e.g. Google in one silo, Morgan Stanley in another). This allows for both digital separation and, if required, physical separation. AMEE can shard to enable this.

Further we anonymise the data on the way in – in fact we insist that clients don’t use AMEE to store e-mail addresses etc, and just use the anonymous key AMEE provides to link their user data. This key is held in their user database and points to the anonymized “AMEE Profile”. Given how much personal data is stored about businesses and individuals in AMEE we wanted to pre-emptively push away this risk, and instill confidence in our clients that even if AMEE were compromised, their users would remain anonymous.

3. Data portability (sharing) and control

Having established that ownership and privacy are the two foundation stones, we can then acknowledge that the ability to share information is extremely important. To do so opens a lot of issues, which we’ve been working on for a long time now, but we are confident that AMEE’s model enables extremely rich data portability without compromising ownership and privacy, by pushing control back to the data owners.

Thanks to effective anonymisation and security, we also believe that data mining and interpretation can be carried out without compromising privacy. Because AMEE has an effective security strategy in place, we can interpret and analyse the Energy Identities of, and on behalf of, our clients, and their clients, in an aggregate fashion, without becoming a “big green brother”.

The results of this research can be used to track the impact of policies regarding energy generation, distribution and use; and to confirm and develop carbon accounting protocols.

Summary

Thankfully most of the these issues are recognisable trends in the online development.

The challenge, and more importantly, the opportunity is to pre-emptively address these issues as we move to a deeper interconnected world.

The potential is for all of us to become involved in the development of our low-carbon economy, the democratization of energy and sustainability and, we hope, to avoid mass extinctions.

I’ll be speaking at the Eighteenth International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2012 Albuquerque.

Machine Wilderness is a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology and nature. The ISEA symposium is held every year in a different location around the world, and has a 30-year history of significant acclaim.

Acoustic Cosmology will be included in the “Radical Cosmologies” track.

Update: I’m speaking on “The Utterance of a Cosmological Model” in Hotel Albuquerque: Sandia Room at 2:30pm.

The “Radical Cosmologies” theme will gaze at the universe and question our place in it. It will explore a wide range of creative perspectives and practices around the cultural, scientific and philosophical possibilities of contemporary astronomy. This theme will incorporate various forms of media, written word, performance and installation, as well as workshops, community-based actions, lectures and online projects to offer viewers fresh interpretations and experiences of cultural myths, indigenous histories and contemporary science.

A sneak preview of some of the work I’ll be presenting on Sunday.

Below is a radio-image taken by ALMA of the “Antennae Galaxies” colliding. We have transformed the image-cube data, in which each pixel represents an electromagnetic radio spectrum, into a sonic spectrum. By clicking the image and moving your cursor around you can “play” a spectrum of the colliding galaxies.

Spend some time moving slowly around the red(redshifted) areas – there is a surprising richness to the harmonics for such a simple sonification.

Note: this loads a 62MB data-cube before displaying (still working on a compressed version) … it could take many minutes to appear if you are on a slow connection – it did take these photons 70 million years to reach us, so please be patient while they go the last few bit-miles!

To view & listen, I recommend you open this link in a new tab while you are reading this post.

To get a sense of the picture at optical wavelengths, the HST image [more at National Geographic or WIRED] is on the left panel.

Pick a future?

(copy of my post on the O’Reilly Radar)

We’re all aware of the emotive language used to polarize the climate change debate.

There are, however, deeper patterns which are repeated across science as it interfaces with politics and media. These patterns have always bothered me, but they’ve never been as “important” as now.

We are entering an new era of seismic change in policy, business, society, technology, finance and our environment, on a scale and speed substantially greater than previous revolutions. The sheer complexity of these interweaving systems is staggering.

Much of this change is being driven by “climate science”, and in the communications maelstrom there is a real risk that we further alienate “science” across the board.

We need more scientists with good media training (and presenting capability) to change the way that all sciences are represented and perceived. We need more journalists with deeper science training – and the time and space to actually communicate across all media. We need to present uncertainty clearly, confidently and in a way that doesn’t impede our decision-making.

On the climate issue, there are some impossible levers to contend with;

1. Introducing any doubt into the climate debate stops any action that might combat our human impact.
2. Introducing “certainty” undermines our scientific method and its philosophy.

When represented in political, public and media spaces, these two levers undermine every scientific debate and lead to bad decisions.

Pascal’s Wager is often invoked, and this is entirely reasonable in this case.

It is reasonable because of what’s at stake: the risk of mass extinction events. If there is a probability that anthropogenic climate change will cause the predicted massive interventions in our ecosystem, then we have to act.

The nature of our actions must be commensurate with both the cause and the effect. The causes are many: population, production, consumption – as are the effects: war, poverty, scarcity, etc.

Our interventions will use all our means to address both cause and effect, and those actions will run deep.

Equally, we must allow science to do what it’s designed to do: measure, model, analyse and predict.

From a scientific perspective we must allow more room for theories to evolve, otherwise we’ll only prove what we’re looking for.

However, if we ignore the potential need to act, the consequences are not something anyone will want to see.

It’s not something we can fix later (for me, “geo-engineering” is not a fix, it’s a pre-infected band-aid).

Given the massive complexity of the issues, and that – really – anthropogenic climate change is only one of many “peak consumption” issues that we face, there is no way we can accurately communicate all the arguments that would lead to mass understanding.

However, the complexity issues are no different from those we face in politics. They are not solvable, but they are addressable.

We can communicate the potential outcomes, and the decisions that individuals need to make in order to impact the causes.

Ultimately it’s your personal choice.

My choice is based on my personal exposure to the science, business, data, policy, media, and broader issues around sustainability. That choice is to do my best to catalyse change as fast as I possibly can.

We all need to actively engage in improving communication, so that everyone – potentially everyone on Earth – can make informed choices about the future of the planet we inhabit.

—
Recommended reading:

http://www.realclimate.org/ is a great resource.

Today, the UK Government launched a campaign “to create a more science literate society, highlighting the science and technology based industries of the future”