# Einstein's greatest error.



## Johann Sebastian Bach (Dec 18, 2015)

As he considered the theory of special relativity, the world's greatest physicist forgot about the essential nature of music. Therefore, e= mc[SUP]2[/SUP] is wrong!

We all know that, when you play a piece of seriously affecting classical music, time stands still. It is therefore vital to incorporate the appropriate symbol into the equation. The formula should be

*e[SUP]b[/SUP]= mc[SUP]2[/SUP]*

Furthermore, the arrangement of electrons in hydrogen as described in Bohr's model occurs in the same ratio as the harmonic series.

Even furthermore, the fact that an accidental lasts for an entire bar, rather than ceasing to exist immediately after creation, is (arguably) evidence of quantum tunnelling.

It would be encouraging to receive a Nobel Physics prize for the above but for reasons I cannot fathom, no-one takes me seriously.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Einstein was aware of these effects:



> "An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour." -Albert Einstein
> 
> This is Einstein's explanation of relativity that he gave to his secretary, Helen Dukas, to relay to reporters and others.


As a musician, he was also aware of the impact of muisc:










Oh, and remember that Einstein got his Nobel for the photo-electric effect *not* for his theories about relativity.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2015)

Einstein was not a handsome fellow
Nobody ever called him Al
He had a long moustache to pull on, it was yellow
I don't believe he ever had a gal
One thing he missed out in his theory
Of time and space and relativity
Is something that makes it very clear
He was never gonna score like you and me
He didn't know about
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm

I had a dangerous liaison
To have been found out would've been a disgrace
We had to rendezvous some days on
the corner of an undiscovered place
We got sick of chat chat chatter
And the look upon everybody's face
But all that doesn't not anti-matter now
We've found ourselves a black hole out in space
And we're talking about
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm

Here it comes--it goes "quark! quark!"

Copernicus had those Renaissance ladies
Crazy about his telescope
And Galileo had a name that made his
Reputation higher than his hopes
Did none of those astronomers discover
While they were staring out into the dark
That what a lady looks for in her lover
Is Charm, Strangeness and Quark
And we're talking about
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm
Quark, Strangeness and Charm

--Hawkwind


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2015)

> Furthermore, the arrangement of electrons in hydrogen as described in Bohr's model occurs in the same ratio as the harmonic series.


Hydrogen only has one electron. You mean electron orbitals, I think.


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## Johann Sebastian Bach (Dec 18, 2015)

Victor Redseal said:


> Hydrogen only has one electron. You mean electron orbitals, I think.


Please don't make the mistake of taking me seriously! I enjoy reading about the quantum world, with which I have a grasp weaker than the weak nuclear force.

I have a professor of physics in one of my choirs - he quickly learnt to ignore my jabberings when I suggested that his value to the group as a _basso profundo_ (we were doing Rach's Vespers) was because acoustic theory had taught him how to "stop" his vocal cords in the same way as an organ pipe, thus helping him sing notes off the bottom of the bass stave.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2015)

Well, electron levels DO follow the musical harmonic series. Physicists and musicians have both expressed fascination by it. It seems a huge variety of phenomena are created by just a couple of templates.


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## hagridindminor (Nov 5, 2015)

"Furthermore, the arrangement of electrons in hydrogen as described in Bohr's model occurs in the same ratio as the harmonic series."

Is this true? (I'm asking) And can you explain to someone who's not that read up in this subject

While Einstein certainly made all of his contributions to the side of empiricism, he was certainly a rationalist


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Victor Redseal said:


> Einstein was not a handsome fellow
> Nobody ever called him Al
> He had a long moustache to pull on, it was yellow
> I don't believe he ever had a gal
> ...


For no obvious reason, your post reminds me of 'Pablo Picasso' by The Modern Lovers:
 


Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called assh#le
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an assh#le

Well the girls would turn the color
Of the avacado when he would drive
Down their street in his El Dorado
He could walk down you street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an assh#le
Not like you
Alright

Well he was only 5'3"
But girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an assh#le
Not in New York

Oh well be not schmuck, be not abnoxious
Be not bellbottom bummer or assh#le
Remember the story of Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an assh#le
Alright this is it

Some people try to pick up girls
And they get called an assh#le
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and so
Pablo Picasso was never called...


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2015)

Well, briefly, a note is composed of a fundamental tone and also harmonics or partials or overtones as they are variously called. This is because when a string is plucked or struck, it vibrates first at its halfway point. Then it starts to vibrate in thirds, then fourths, then fifths and so on. That’s what produces the harmonics. We think of it as a single note but it is not. The characteristic of the note, its quality, is called timbre. Timbre is why A440 played on a guitar sounds different from A440 on a piano or on a trumpet or a sax. The only difference in timbre is how the harmonics are accented. We wouldn’t have timbre if a note was merely one note rather than many working in harmony—which is why we call them harmonics. 

So, with a note, you have the fundamental then the first harmonic which is half of the fundamental making an octave higher in tone. Then the next harmonic vibrates in thirds making a perfect fifth higher than the fundamental. Then the next harmonic after that vibrates in fourths making a doubling of the octave so it’s two octaves above the fundamental. The fifth fundamental divides the string into fifths and so produces a perfect fourth above the fundamental only that fourth is in the second octave above the fundamental and on it goes.

In an atom, you have a nucleus surrounded by electrons. Each electron has a particular orbital pattern which consists of a ground state followed by excited states. The ground state is the lowest orbit the electron can occupy around the nucleus. But, more importantly, the orbit was not of a solid corpuscle zooming around a nucleus but rather the orbit was simply a circular standing wave. If an electron absorbs energy, it jumps to a higher level—an excited state—and its frequency increases. If the electron loses energy, it drops down to a lower level and its frequency decreases and so that energy must be thrown out of the atom, so to speak, and we call this expelled energy a photon. Just as a vibrating string produces harmonics that are integral multiples of the fundamental, the higher orbitals of an electron are integral frequencies of the lowest or fundamental orbit. This is simply because a circular orbit at the ground state of 1 cannot produce a higher orbital of, say, 1.5 exactly without producing some amount of overlap in the wave which is an impossibility. The next highest orbital of the electron wave that fits together exactly—no overlap—would be 2. The next after that one would be 3 and then 4 and so on. The frequency also increases proportionally which also increases the amount of energy contained in the orbital. Electron orbitals are constructed amazingly like the harmonic series of the musical note! 

When an electron changes orbital levels, there are no intermediate stages. For example, an electron going from orbital 2 to orbital 1 does not pass through any orbital 1.75 or 1.333 for the reason already explained—such wavelengths cannot precisely fit into a circular orbit but always have an overlap. So when an electron jumps from one orbit to another, it does so discretely and instantaneously just as there are no intermediate harmonics between two in a series. There is no harmonic 3.5 between harmonics 3 and 4, for example, one passes to the other discretely. Each partial is discrete and integral to the fundamental.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Einstein had definite views on various composers.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/albert-einstein-on-music


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

And he fiddled just fine...


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## Johann Sebastian Bach (Dec 18, 2015)

To add to the science:
The harmonic series is best illustrated by a brass instrument, particularly one without valves or a slide, such as a bugle.
Let's assume that the lowest note possible is a C. This is called the fundamental. If the player tightens her/his lips slightly, the next note of the harmonic series (1st harmonic) is produced. It's an octave above the fundamental. There are no notes in between (the harmonic series won't allow it). Further tightening of the lips (i.e. more air pressure) produces the 2nd harmonic, which is the G above the first harmonic. The 3rd harmonic is the C above the 2nd and the sequence then continues with E, G, Bb, C, D, E, F, F sharp....The maths behind this works as a ratio. The ratio of the first to second harmonic is 2:1 (the frequency is doubled, so that the second harmonic of a 440cps A is, at 2:1, 880cps). The next ratio (2nd to 3rd) is 3:2, followed by 4:3 and so on. You will note that, as the sequence rises, the notes get closer together.
As Victor Redseal then explains, the tone of an instrument is a combination of different harmonics, with the fundamental being much stronger than the upper harmonics. Brighter sounding instruments have stronger upper partials sounding: the converse is true of mellower tones.
As to electron shells, the same ratios found in the harmonic series describe the energy levels at which electrons may orbit the nucleus. 
Max Planck showed that energy moves in discrete packets, or quanta. The harmonic series works in a similar way, where the notes in between harmonics are simply not allowed (i.e. don't exist - until you add valves or a slide).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

When I saw the title of this thread, I was afraid the OP would be something like this review:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2Y3M05H5ZZVFK


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Einstein had definite views on various composers.
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/albert-einstein-on-music


*I admire Wagner's inventiveness, but I see his lack of architectural structure as decadence. Moreover, to me his musical personality is indescribably offensive so that for the most part I can listen to him only with disgust.*

Who would thunk?!


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Victor Redseal said:


> Well, briefly, a note is composed of a fundamental tone and also harmonics or partials or overtones as they are variously called.


The fundamental note _is_ the first harmonic with the second harmonic being at the first point of non-displacement.
Also known as a node.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2016)

Badinerie said:


> The fundamental note _is_ the first harmonic with the second harmonic being at the first point of non-displacement.
> Also known as a node.


Yes, the fundamental is the first harmonic. But overtones do not include the fundamental.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The foregoing is fascinating, but I think to whole quantizing of music theory is about the undergo an upheaval with the identification of Higgs' bassoon.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Groan! Will the nearest person please give him a slap...


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Taggart said:


>


Bohuslav Martinů taught at Princeton at the same time as Einstein, and wrote his Five Madrigal Stanzas in 1943 for Einstein to play with Robert Casadesus.
From sleeve notes to a Hyperion release: 


> The violin part is comparatively simple but deceptively so, and there is obvious 'writing down' to the recipient. The piano part, on the other hand, is considerably more difficult as befitted Casadesus's great reputation as a keyboard virtuoso. Though Martinu had made every effort to tailor his demands to Einstein's technical limitations, Einstein was unable to make a reciprocal gesture to the composer's scientific amateurism and Martinu's rueful attempts to get to grips with the Theory of Relativity consequently remained unfulfilled.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

MarkW said:


> The foregoing is fascinating, but I think to whole quantizing of music theory is about the undergo an upheaval with the identification of Higgs' bassoon.


That's the one that used for masses isn't it?


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