[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/big-b...ythm-universe/


MICKEY HART: The universe is made up of vibrations. I have been very interested in sonifying the universe, the cosmos, the sun, the Big Bang, taking those radiations from telescopes, radio telescopes, and turning that radiation into sound, which I make music out of and compose with, in the macro, and now in the micro with the brain waves, heart rhythms, DNA, stem cells.

All of these have a sound. And so we take these sounds in and we embed them in the music.

MIKE CERRE: Mickey’s search for the universal source of rhythm has gone intergalactic and all the way back to the beginning of the cosmos.

MICKEY HART: The moment of creation, beginning of time and space, when the blank page of the universe exploded and it created the stars, the planets, black holes, pulsars, supernovas, this was the beginning of time and space, and then us. And then we are still now toying with this rhythmic stimuli that was created 13.7 billion years ago.

GEORGE SMOOT, University of California, Berkeley: What is needed is someone who is artistic to hear these sounds and be inspired by them and turn them into something that is really pleasing for people to hear.

MIKE CERRE: Astrophysicist George Smoot earned a Nobel Prize for his work in charting the origins of what many believe to be the beginning of creation, with the Big Bang. He’s also a longtime Dead Head.

MICKEY HART: He can show me waveforms of the first million years and all that. And that’s really great. But as soon as I see it, I said, give me those waveforms, George. And let’s see what they sound like. And let’s dance to those things. And George said, yes.

MIKE CERRE: With the help of the University of California at Berkeley’s supercomputer, Smoot’s team converted light wave traces from the Big Bang into sound waves for Mickey to work with.