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/
Jazz musician says
planets make music
in the solar system
United Press International
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The
whirring, whining, ticking, thumping
and creaking noises alternately
sound like a revving motorcycle or a
ghost moving through a haunted
house. Willie Ruff says it’s the
music of the planets.
Ruff, 47, a renowned jazz musi
cian and Yale University professor
of music, has recorded the sounds
— which were originally calculated
350 years ago by 17th century
astronomer Johannes Kepler —
and released them under the title
“The Harmony of the World.”
Kepler had theorized that as the
worlds turn through our solar sys
tem, their motions and the varying
speeds of their orbits gave them an
everchanging “continuous song for
several voices to be perceived by
the intellect, not the ear.”
With the aid of his neighbor, geol
ogy professor and pianist John
Rodgers, Ruff worked more than
two years to construct Kepler’s
model geometrically and make the
sounds available for the ear.
He used 20th century technology
to follow through on the old calcula
tions, notations and theories.
“We have made real what was
before only calculations on paper,”
Ruff said. “Through the marriage of
astronomy and music, we have cre
ated an oral planetarium for use as
a teaching tool in classrooms,
planetariums and museums
throughout the world.”
“There’s a great cosmic rhythm
out there,” he says.
The two professors took their cal
culations to a hybrid computer-
synthesizer at Princeton University
last winter and by inserting formu
lae of each planet’s size, shape and
orbit speed into the computer, they
were able to produce a tape repre
senting the sounds of the planets
moving through space.
The resulting music of the
heavens is a sometimes sweet,
sometimes harsh tune.
Earth’s sad drone and Saturn’s
deep growl contrast markedly with
Pluto’s steady drum beat and Ura
nus’s rapid ticky-ticky-ticky. Nep
tune clicks and Jupiter thumps.
The song of the solar system,
which at actual frequencies would
be far too slow for the human ear to
hear, has been speeded up with
each five seconds of the recording
representing one Earth year.
For only $10, the sounds of the
heavens between the years 1571
and 1835 can resound in any living
room, courtesy of the Kepler Re
cording Co. started by the two pro
fessors.
“Kepler’s old mama would be
proud that 350 years later her son
has his own label,” Ruff says.
Ruff says commercial recording
companies just weren’t interested
in producing the celestial harmony.
But the finished product has got
ten attention around the world.
Ruff, in fact, plans to visit China to
lecture and play tapes of his record
ings of the sounds of the heavens.
f
Records
(KTAM)
Singles
1. Lost Her... — John Stewart
2. Sara — Fleetwood Mac
3. Longer— Dan Fogelberg
4. Wait For Me — Hall/Oats
5. Rock w/You — Michael Jackson
6. The Long Run — Eagles
7. Last Train To London — ELO
8. Yes, I’m Ready— Terri DeSario
9. Romeo’s Tune — Steve Forbert
10. Third Time Lucky—Foghat
11. Don’t Do Me... — Tom Petty
12. You Know That I Santana
13. Fool In The Rain — Zeppelin
14. I Wanna Be Your... — Prince
15. Coward — Kenny Rogers
16. Deja Vu— Dionne Warwick
17. Crazy Little Thing — Queen
18. September Morn—Neil Diamond
19. An American Dream — Dirt Band
20. When I Wanted — Barry Manilow
1
Discovery earned Nobel prize
Transistor found by ‘chance’
United Press International
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — “The only regret I
have about the transistor is its use for rock and roll
music. I still have my rifle and sometimes when I
hear that noise I think I could shoot them all.”
Walter Brattain, 77, sits in his office at Whitman
College reminiscing about his experiences as a
research scientist and the discovery of the transis
tor which brought him a Nobel prize and world
acclaim.
He was working at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J.,
on the historic day in 1947 when he, John Bar-
green, and William Shockley made the discovery
which led to the development of the transistor.
Brattain says the transistor discovery was by
chance, that he was in the right place at the right
time.
“I was lucky,” he said.
“It really started in July of 1947. Bardeen ex
plained why some things we had always assumed
were true really were not so, aand I was trying to
fully understand the properties of semi
conductors.” .
The day that he and several colleagues watched
a tiny piece of treated germanium with two gold
contacts attached serve as the amplifier in place of
an electron tube in a communications circuit, he
knew it was a breakthrough of far-reaching signifi
cance.
“On the way home that night I told the other riders
in our car pool that I had probably taken part in the
largest experience I would ever have.”
Nine years later, on December 10, 1956, in
Stockholm’s Concert Hall, Swedish King Gustav IV
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics to Brattain.
Sharing the prize were Bardeen and Shockley.
A model of that first transistor sits under a small
plastic dome in Brattain’s office.
"Before medicine got into using the transistor for
so many wonderful things, I think the best use of it
was the transistor radio,” he said. “Anyone in the
world could listen — nomads in Iran, people in the
Indies, people living under dictatorships could lis
ten to news from the U.S. and really know what was
happening.”
In 1967, after more than 37 years with Bell Labs,
Brattain retired.
Brattain’s mailbox is usually bulging. Autograph
collectors, students, research and admirers write
from all over the world. There’s a letter from behind
the Iron curtain written in German, letters from
Sweden, and numerous others.
“It’s very time consuming,” Brattain said, “and a
lot of them don’t even send return postage.”
Brattain props one leg on the edge of his desk
and looks out of the window to the center of the
campus where students are hurrying to class.
“I guess the best way to sum it all up is to say that
to be able to spend one’s life and earn one’s living
as a research scientist is a privilege and I’m grateful
to have had the opportunity.”
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