Pythagoras and Music

Published: July 1, 2009, 9:23 p.m.

The musician draws the bow across the violin string and immediately the inert atmosphere becomes vibrant and transparent, “…as if sound from nonspatial realms shines through a window into the world of space.” What is being demonstrated is a phenomenon known as the overtone series, in which any tone, played or sung, activates a column of mathematically-related notes which vibrate sympathetically with the sounded pitch and create resonance. Octaves throughout the universe respond, in a modern, scientific “music of the spheres,” echoing the hypothesis that dates back to ancient times and the School of Pythagoras.