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Astrophysicist Wanda Diaz (Courtesy of Wanda Diaz)
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Science and Creativity
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Astronomers used to believe in something called “the music of the spheres” — they thought that planets and stars created harmonies as they traveled through the skies. These days, astronomy is mostly a matter of visual data expressed in charts and graphs. That won’t work for Wanda Diaz, an astrophysicist from Puerto Rico. She’s blind, and working on new ways to measure and represent what’s going on in outer space. Her technique may help those of us who can see, as well. Produced by Ari Epstein.
Bonus Track: Astronomical Music
Listen to a short excerpt of astronomical data converted into synthesized music.
Wanda uses a graph marked with Braille tags on a pegboard to plot the intensity of light versus frequency for a spiral galaxy. She can figure out the mass of the galaxy by calculating the area under the curve.
(Courtesy of Wanda Diaz)
Contributors:
Ari Epstein
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Comments [5]
Very cool! I recently worked on something similar to audify a time-series of supernovae: http://vimeo.com/23927216
Thank you! Has Wanda or your team heard of the artist duo Semiconductor? They created a soundtrack to NASA photos in 2006 that highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies. Video here: http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/root/Brilliant_Noise/BNoise.htm
Hi Carrie Mae,
Ari Epstein, who produced the story, passed along some "data music" created by Wanda. It's just a short excerpt, but we posted it as a bonus track for you to listen to.
Fascinating interview!! I loved it. I want to learn more about the software and where I can listen to more 'Music From the Spheres' of the NASA data translated to music...
Wanda is the definition of determination and intelligence. Im proud of her.
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