The researcher optimized the duration of all frequency components for greater melodicness and also matched them to notes in a uniform scale, which makes it possible to play “atomic sounds” in musical instruments. Linz reported the results of his study at the American Acoustic Association meeting.

The process of converting any data into sound is called sonification. Although it mostly pursues creative and popularizing goals, scientists do it quite often.

Why it is necessary?

The conversion of light waves into sound waves is the most natural, since vision and hearing are the two channels through which a person perceives the largest amount of information. For example, in this way, you can try to convert the spectra of all atoms in the periodic table of the elements into sound to facilitate the study of atomic physics for students with visual impairments. This is quite a difficult task, because the atomic spectral lines have different densities, widths and are arranged on a frequency scale that does not resemble the sounds of musical instruments, since the raw atomic “sounds” would be unpleasant and uninformative to hear. At the same time, it is important to preserve the uniqueness of each sound, because the atomic spectra, which are the basis of analytical chemistry methods, are also unique.

The efforts of Jill Linz, a physics teacher at Skidmore College in New York, aimed to solve these problems. In 2016, he launched a project called Atomic music, and at the end of 2022 he succeeded in reproducing the sounds of almost all the chemical elements he detailed at the Acoustical Society of America conference.

The sound of atoms: watch the video

Their calculations were based on three audio signal processing techniques.

• Firstlyproduced a linear map of the spectral lines of the visible range (400-700 nanometers) to sounds with frequencies from 0 to 1000 hertz, based on the frequency ranges between the individual components. The amplitude of each component corresponded to the intensity of the line.
• Second, the researcher took into account that for a comfortable perception of sound, it should have a time higher than a certain threshold (60 milliseconds), but at the same time it should decrease exponentially over time. At this stage, he also decided on the form of the amplitude amplification, choosing what was revealed during wire tweezers removal.
• FinallyLinz introduced a uniform annealing of the frequency range, which made it possible to roughly match each element with its own set of traditional musical notes.

As a result, the physicist compiled a library of sounds specific to each element and associated with their visible spectra, except those that do not have them (you can listen to the full Mendeleev chart here). It is worth noting that this is a symbolic vocalization, since the atom emits only one spectral line at a time, and all frequencies sound simultaneously in the sound. In other words, the sounds correspond to heated atomic gas, not individual elements. Also, the study did not take into account the phase relationships between individual harmonics.

But Linz’s work caught the attention of many of his colleagues. It turned out that some regularity was observed in the resulting sound set. For example, low-mass elements such as carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen tend to have dissonant hues as their lines span across the spectrum. On the contrary, heavy metals sound better because their lines are grouped together and form an almost pure sine wave. The ability to play atomic sounds on instruments interested musicians who have used their results in various music projects.