The Harmonics of Sound

Sound has been a source of divine inspiration since the beginning of time and has been regarded as the very foundation of creation by many traditions. Archeological records indicate that all ancient cultures developed orthodox musical systems based on a pentatonic scale. While there might be a supernatural or metaphysical connection to account for how so many far-flung cultures came to this same conclusion, there is a very simple and down to earth explanation for it as well. The notes were derived from the naturally occurring harmonics inherent to sound itself.

Pythagoras was among the first recorded in the Western world to have established a mathematical basis for the natural harmonic series. He was also the first to tweak the tuning of an instrument in such a way that eventually led to the divorce of Western music tunings from these harmonics. By contrast, ancient Eastern culture adhered to the natural harmonics and chose to remain true to the Kung, or cosmic tone of the universe.

The ancient Chinese were meticulous in recording their astronomical observations. Like Pythagoras, they also found the mathematical underpinnings of music. But, unlike Pythagoras, they correlated these musical patterns to those they found in the cosmos, which were slightly irregular in their repetition. This is an important point because it exemplifies one of the main philosophical differences in Eastern and Western thought.

Pythagoras preferred a two-thirds division on a string to show an orderly, mathematical progression of the harmonic series. After seven such divisions, twelve distinct notes were produced. This was akin to the seven known planets traveling through the twelve zodiacs. He displayed these ratios geometrically in a circle. Upon the thirteenth division, the cycle was supposed to repeat, but it didn’t. That next note is actually just a little sharp, or higher in pitch, than the original note. This became known as the “comma of Pythagoras”. Because of his preference for symmetry, Pythagoras chose to de-tune the scale a bit so that all twelve notes would fit into one octave and the entire progression would fit perfectly into a circle. This became known as the Circle of Fifths.

The ancient Chinese also discovered this problem, but they chose to deal with it quite differently. In keeping with their belief that everything follows its own Tao, they elected not to confine the pattern to a perfect circle. Instead, they displayed it as an expanding spiral. This was also in accordance with their observations of the planets, which did not orbit in perfect circles either.

Because their tunings stayed true to the natural harmonic series, the Chinese developed linear styles of play in which one note was followed by another in serial fashion and the chord progression was built-up in the memory of the listener. So, in Eastern music, listening is not a passive act. It requires focus and paying attention to detail.

In stark contrast to these ideas, Western music became vertical with many notes stacked on top of one another and played simultaneously. The chords allowed the music to be delivered all at once so, the listener had little responsibility to pay attention or be patient for the whole of the sound to be delivered. This basic difference in philosophy can also be seen in the contrasting ways the East and West developed medicine and science in general.

Dividing a string is not the only way to experience the harmonic series. Let’s take a mythical journey back to a time when humans lived in caves and imagine how sound might have become sacred music in the first place. Caves are reverberant spaces. The hard, smooth rock walls would reflect or echo any sound produced inside the cave. Never having heard an echo, Bruno, our first-time cave dweller, was disconcerted by this phenomenon every time he made a sound and thought perhaps other people or creatures in the cave had created them. He eventually determined it was the sound of his own voice. As part of a ritual blessing, he made sounds and gestures to ward off any harmful spirits in his new home. Then, to encourage beneficial spirits to protect him, he made one long sustained sound. Suddenly the faint echo of women’s voices began to emerge from the cave. This startled Bruno, but he accepted it as the voices of the spirits who had answered him. What our mythical Bruno experienced might well have been the beginnings of musical harmony.

Sounds of a certain pitch correspond to waves of a certain length. If the wavelength of the sound Bruno created was the same as the distance between two walls of the cave, a standing wave would have been created. If sufficiently energized, the second harmonic of that wave would have been produced, which was the octave. Because it was higher than his own voice, Bruno may have thought it to be a woman or a spirit.

Other harmonics can be produced in this manner. In fact, the interiors of several gothic cathedrals and other temple structures are designed specifically to enhance the production of harmonics and simulate the ethereal sounds of angels or other heavenly beings. This type of rich harmonic environment is also why it just feels good to sing in the shower.

Some content excerpted from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom
© 2008 MaAnna Stephenson
Content may be used freely with proper credit and a link to www.SageAge.net

New Lightning Types May Affect Our Psyche

Between the lower boundary of the ionosphere of the sky and the ground plane of the Earth exists a cavity that is continually energized by 40 million lightning strikes a day. This energy makes the cavity resonate and creates an electromagnetic (EM) standing wave that bounces between the sky and Earth. It travels at the speed of light, as do all EM waves, and circumnavigates the entire planet about 7.86 times per second. It is called the Schumann Resonance (SR) and studies show that it likely plays a critical role in psi activity.

The frequency range of the SR is between 1-40 Hz with a dominant frequency of 7.8 Hz which falls in the Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) range of the EM spectrum used for radio waves. It travels in a west to east direction and is longer at night than during the day. This is due to the rotation of the Earth and the sun’s rays compressing the ionosphere on the daylight side of the planet. It is primarily energized by lightning but the North American power grid energizes it as well because the ninth overtone of the dominant wave frequency (7.8 Hz) is 60 Hz, which is the operating frequency of the grid. (Most of the rest of the world’s power grids run at 50 Hz.) The SR is named for the physicist who first mathematically predicted its existence in 1952, Winfried Otto Schumann, although Nikola Tesla was the first to document his observations of it in 1902. Tesla was also the first to suggest the possibility of wireless radio communication.

The SR acts as a carrier wave for the sound of lightning activity all over the globe and this can be heard with a radio receiver tuned to the ELF range. Because the SR’s dominant frequency of 7.8 Hz is also in the middle of the alpha-theta range of brainwave activity, it has been studied as a carrier wave of psychic and healing abilities. In 1969, Robert C. Beck researched the brain activity of healers. They all entrained to the Schumann Resonance in both phase and frequency.

Professor Michael Persinger of the Psychophysiology Laboratory at Laurentian University noted that ELF waves propagate more easily from midnight to 4:00 a.m. and that they are easier to transmit from west to east rather than east to west. Persinger surveyed the ESP literature for any correlation and found that there was a direct correspondence in time and direction in both telepathic and clairvoyant episodes with the SR. Persinger also observed that the same geomagnetic disturbances and magnetic storms that affect global communication also disrupt the SR and psi experiences.

Although there are several accurate mathematical descriptions about how lightning behaves and a few theories about how it originates, to date no one is positively sure how it is generated. What we do know is that lightning makes amino acids, which is thought to be a critically important ingredient in causing life to arise from the primordial soup. Lightning also splits apart molecules in the air and by doing so makes nitrogen available to plants.

Most folks think one lightning bolt is pretty much the same as another. Amazingly though, new forms of lightning have been discovered in just the last few decades. While 75% of all bolts fire within clouds, most of those that strike toward the Earth are considered negative bolts. They are less than an inch wide and burn at about 50,000 degrees, which is hotter than the sun’s surface. Recently, it has been confirmed that some lightning bolts work in reverse and lower a positive charge to the ground. Unlike negative bolts, which burn for 10 milliseconds, positive bolts burn for hundreds of milliseconds with 10 times more amps. This has required NASA to develop new safety requirements for aircraft and space shuttles.

Another new form of lightning that is a concern for space flight is sprites, which is an acronym for Stratospheric/Mesospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense Thunderstorm Electrification. Their official classification is as Transient Luminous Events or TLE’s. These new bolts are plumes of EM energy rising anywhere from 15,000 feet above the clouds to 50 miles high and 25 miles wide. They were predicted as early as 1925 by Scottish physicist C.T.R. Wilson, but weren’t documented until 1993 by Walt Lyons at the Yucca Ridge Field Station in Colorado.

Soon afterward, blue plumes called jets were found. They shot out into space. Later discoveries have been named elves, which is an acronym for Emissions of Light and VLF perturbations from EMP events. They are the most powerful bolts of all and can shoot anywhere from 10 to 50 miles up into space all the way through the ionosphere.

Since lightning plays a direct role in creating amino acids and, therefore life, and since humans are so attuned to the Schumann Resonance, it will be interesting to see what discoveries lay ahead in the investigation of these new types of lightning and how they affect life on Earth. It will be especially interesting to see how it may affect those who practice the intuitive arts.

Some content excerpted from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom
© 2008 MaAnna Stephenson
Content may be used freely with proper credit and a link to www.SageAge.net

Dancing to the Same Score

One of the most famous experiments in physics is a simple yet profound example of the dual nature of light. It is called the “two-slit experiment.” It was first conducted by English polymath, Thomas Yong around 1800 and validated the wave theory of light, overturning Newton’s corpuscular ideas. Neils Bohr used it to develop the Principle of Complementarity showing that light was both a particle and a wave and no description of light was complete without referencing both. It was also at the heart of Einstein’s famous thought experiment called the EPR Paradox, designed to show the incompleteness of quantum theory. One of the most intriguing aspects of the experiment is that you find exactly what you expect to find. It validates light as both a particle and a wave. How can this be? Well, that is the very question physicists have been trying to answer for over 200 years.

The experiment is very simple. A steady laser beam of light is aimed at a target. Two devices with slits which can be individually opened or closed are placed side by side in the path of the light beam. When only one slit is open, all of the light travels through it and hits a target on the other side of the slit in a bullet fashion. This demonstrates the particle nature of light. When both slits are open, the pattern on the target looks exactly like waves which are interfering with one another. The most puzzling thing is that these same patterns emerge when the light is sent in a steady stream or when one photon is released at a time.

There are two main conclusions which physicists have drawn from this experiment. The first is that you find what you are seeking. If you set up the experiment with one slit to detect particles, that’s what is produced on the target. If you set up the experiment to detect waves, that will be the pattern produced regardless if it is a steady stream of light or one photon at a time.

As physicists attempted to come to grips with these results, some exotic theories arose. Some called into play the hidden variables found in entanglement experiments. Others suggested that each particle somehow “knows” beforehand which path to take so that it mysteriously cooperated with all of the other particles yet to be fired. Einstein even suggested a pilot wave ahead of the particle that served to guide it.

Physicist David Bohm developed a most intriguing theory. He described the two-slit experiment as photons dancing to a musical score. The score came from what he called the Seamless Whole which acted as a pool of information. This Whole included the physicist, the laser, the photons within the laser beam, the slits and the target, or measuring device. After the experiment was set up by the physicist, all elements of it became known to the Whole. For example, the conditions under which the experiment would be conducted was one element in the overall pool of information in the entire system. If the experiment were set up with one slit open to detect particles, that condition became a “known” element in the entire system. The photons then, simply went along with that information. In other words, they danced to that music. When the experimental conditions were changed, i.e., when the music changed, the photons simply did another dance in accordance. The photons didn’t have to have prior knowledge of anything nor was an observer necessary.

Prior to the introduction of Bohm’s theory, all of quantum physics had been absorbed in determining the state of a system in the present and the prediction of how that system would be in the future. This description was muddled in murky probabilities. Bohm’s theory described the genuine motion of particles over time, not just the probability of where any one would be at any one time. This solidified the idea that the universe must be seen as a whole system and that anything which can be said of its individual elements at any one instance is only a partial description at best. Bohm’s theories eventually came to be referred to as Bohmian Mechanics.

One of the interesting features of the two-slit experiment is that it allows a thing to be realized in two different ways. But, our daily experience would lead us to believe the words of Gertrude Stein in that “A rose, is a rose, is a rose.” We can accumulate different sensations of it by looking at it, smelling it and even touching it, but alas, it remains a rose. But, the two-slit experiment demonstrates a thing becoming a wave. That’s like a door knob turning into a sound depending on how you observe it. The entire concept is mind-boggling. Of such things, Heisenberg said, “What we learn about is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our methods of questioning.” Perhaps someday we will have a broader concept of nature that will give the two-slit experiment a fitting context so that we can better understand the question we are asking of it.

Some content excerpted from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom
© 2008 MaAnna Stephenson
Content may be used freely with proper credit and a link to www.SageAge.net