Freedom of Science

Very interesting work by Dmitri Tymoczko. This site says Tymoczko borrowed

some of the mathematics that string theorists invented to plumb the secrets of the physical universe and found a way to represent the universe of all possible musical chords in graphic form.

I don’t know if the reference to string theory is justified but in Dualism and the Beholder’s eye: Inversional symmetry in chromatic tonal music he starts with a reference to Newtonian physics: 

Music theorists are less explicit about their concern with symmetry than physicists are. They typically propose symmetries en passant, developing notation and terminology that is invariant under various musical transformations. Consider an elementary example: when theorists say that a note is “an Fs,” the description remains true even if the note is transposed by one or more octaves. The term “Fs” thus embodies a symmetry (octave equivalence) by virtue of being insensitive to a musical operation (octave transposition)—much as the laws of Newtonian physics remain the same whether one chooses to describe oneself as being at rest, or in motion with a constant velocity.

I think he is using the word symmetry to mean a quantity that remains constant as some other quantity varies, in other words, symmetry == a proportionality. This is how physicists also use the word symmetry. 

Graphics and animations are very nice. I will start reading about mathematics and music. Fascinating subject.

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