Every pure musical tone has a frequency, the number of oscillations per second in the sound wave. Doubling the frequency corresponds to moving up one octave. A musical note consists of a base frequency or pitch, called the fundamental together with a series of harmonics, or oscillations whose frequencies are whole-number multiples of the fundamental frequency.
Archive for August, 2014
Mathematics is coming to Life in a Big Way. This week’s That’s Maths in The Irish Times (TM051, or Search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com) is about the increasing importance of mathematics in the biological sciences.
![Biological network modelled by Boris Kholodenko, SBI. [Frosted vinyl print on wall of SBI boardroom in UCD]](https://thatsmaths.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/sbi-wall-formulas-part.jpg)
Biological network modelled by Boris Kholodenko, SBI.
[Frosted vinyl print on wall of SBI boardroom in UCD]
Do you recall coming across those diagrams with overlapping circles that were popularised in the ‘sixties’, in conjunction with the “New Maths”. They were originally introduced around 1880 by John Venn, and now bear his name.
![RIght: John Venn (1834–1923) with signature. Left: Stained glass window at Gonville & Caius College showing Venn diagram [images Wikimedia Commons].](https://thatsmaths.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/venn-with-window.jpg)
Left: Stained glass window at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge showing a Venn diagram. Right: John Venn (1834-1923) with signature [images Wikimedia Commons].
That’s Maths in The Irish Times this week (TM050, or Search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com) is about how a simple pendulum can demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.
![Reconstruction of Foucault's demonstration in 1902 (illustration from the cover of WIlliam Tobin's book [1]).](https://thatsmaths.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/foucault-flammarion.jpg)
Reconstruction of Foucault’s demonstration. Original experiment in 1851. [Illustration (1902) from the cover of WIlliam Tobin’s book [1].]
ThatsMaths 