The BBC have a great story about a new way of searching for the Higgs boson (or God particle) using sonic modelling; each layer of energy in a particle detector is represented by a note and their pitch is different depending on the amount of energy that is deposited in that layer. By analyzing the resulting sounds, it’s possible that physicists may be able to pick out the Higgs particle by “listening to the data”. You can hear a sample of what the Higgs might sound like on the BBC website.
Simulated collision event producing a Higgs boson
Richard Dobson, a composer involved with the project, says he is struck at how musical the products of the collisions sound – “We can hear clear structures in the sound, almost as if they had been composed. They seem to tell a little story all to themselves. They’re so dynamic and shifting all the time, it does sound like a lot of the music that you hear in contemporary composition”.
Actually, that doesn’t surprise me . Most good music is pleasant to the ear because of internal symmetries. Given that our understanding of particle physics is founded on elegant mathematical symmetries, it’s not surprising that if you translate particle masses and energies into sound you get pleasing sounds!
Best of all, this might offer another way to seach for brand new particles – I wonder what supersymmetric particles would sound like?
Musicians wanted – CERN, Switzerland