String Length and Music
Acoustics · Interactive
- DimensionsSubject to on-site plan
- PresentationInteractive
- PricingQuoted by manufacture spec
Purpose & Scientific Principle
The exhibition aims to show Pythagoras’s idea that everything is number, including his discovery of mathematics and art, division of natural numbers, etc., and his important contribution to the development of modern geometry and algebra.
How to Operate
Pythagoras’ thought of “all things are number”: Based on the study of musicology, the Pythagoreans proposed the theory that “number is all things”. They found that what determines different homophonic sounds is a certain quantitative relationship and has nothing to do with material composition. Legend has it that Pythagoras once passed by a blacksmith's shop and heard the sound of iron being struck inside changing from time to time. When he walked over and took a look, it turned out that different weights of iron produced different homophonic sounds. After returning home, he continued to experiment with strings and discovered the numerical relationship between different tensions and articulation intervals in the same string. These studies must have inspired him to think that what makes the difference among all things is not its material components, but the quantitative relationships they contain, so he proposed the numerology philosophy that numbers are all things. Modern science has made great progress in pursuing the mathematical laws of nature. It can be said that many major breakthroughs are due to the discovery of new mathematical laws. The Pythagorean tradition is indeed the most vital intellectual tradition in the natural sciences. The late medieval woodcut on the right depicts Pythagoras and his students using various musical instruments to study the ratio between pitch and string length.
Mathematics and music: The proportional relationship between string length and pitch was discovered by Pythagoras as early as the ancient Greek period: the ratio of the string length of the C sound (Do) to the string length of the A sound is 4:5, the ratio of the string length of the D sound (Re) to the string length of the A sound is 3:4, the E sound (Me) is 2:3, and the F sound (Fa) is 3:5. Because Pythagoras believed that the laws of the universe were numerical relationships, he was convinced that the movement of celestial bodies would produce harmonious sounds, and the basis of "harmony" was simple integer ratios. Although he was not entirely correct, the combination of pitches in simple integer ratios remains the basis of today's harmony.
On the basis of musicological research, the Pythagoreans proposed the theory that "number is everything". They found that what determines different homophonic sounds is a certain quantitative relationship and has nothing to do with material composition. Legend has it that Pythagoras once passed by a blacksmith's shop and heard the sound of iron being struck inside changing from time to time. When he walked over and took a look, it turned out that different weights of iron produced different homophonic sounds. After returning home, he continued to experiment with strings and discovered the numerical relationship between different tensions and pronunciation intervals in the same string. The exhibition item restores this idea in kind, triggering the audience's thinking about music and mathematics.
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