Alan D
Group: Members
Posts: 3670
Joined: Aug. 2004 |
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Posted: May 16 2007, 16:44 |
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I remember reading a book by the astronomer Fred Hoyle many years ago, in which he took a close look at Kepler's ideas about the "music of the spheres". Basically (but this is too simplistic a description, I admit), Kepler believed that God was a mathematician (because mathematics was the most perfect thing Kepler could imagine) and so, he argued, we ought to be able to discern mathematical perfection in the construction of the universe.
So Kepler spent most of his life trying to find some ‘perfect’ mathematical relationship that predicted the radii of the orbits of the planets, and part of this search involved looking for a relationship between the laws of musical harmony (which are mathematical, at root) and the planetary orbits. The amazing thing, thought Hoyle, is that Kepler succeeded in doing this with remarkable accuracy. Furthermore, when in due course the planet Uranus was discovered, it also fitted Kepler’s scheme.
Hoyle’s point (if I remember it correctly) was this: today, we don’t consider that the planetary orbits have anything to do with the laws of harmony – so how come Kepler made it work so successfully?
Bearing all this in mind (and more), I think it’s very interesting that Mike would choose such a title for this new project. I wonder what he’s been reading – what has influenced him here? Numbers have always been a source of mystical inspiration, all the way back to the Pythagoreans; even today, some abstract painters still make use of the Golden Ratio as a way of subdividing their canvases harmoniously. I wouldn’t have expected Mike to base his music on some underlying esoteric mathematical symbolism, but who knows?
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