WHY DO SCIENTISTS LOVE MUSIC ?

                                     

WHY  DO SCIENTISTS  LOVE  MUSIC ?

Photo Dr. Hargobind Khurana (1922-2011)

Albert Einstein played violin, it's said, because it helped him think. But he played a beautiful Mozart, too. Einstien had said that if he were not a scientist he would have been a musician. Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone was an accomplished piano player. Tomas Edison was also an accomplished musician. There are so many other examples on this subject.

"I have always considered and experienced music as a counterpart to my scientific interests. Music has helped me stay healthy, mentally, and that's motivated me in my work." says Reinhard Brinkmann, an accelerator physicist at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY), who plays a mean jazz piano . 

Dr Hargobind Khurana cracked the DNA code jointly with  some other scientists. His mentor, Prof Vladimir Prelog was also a Nobel prize winner and loved music intensely. At MIT Boston,  I came to know that Dr  Khurana had a personal library of western classical notations and apart from science , he loved music intensely .

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (born  1938) , noted indian astrophysicist who developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal gravity theory, known as Hoyle–Narlikar theory,  is not only a lover but an avid amateur practitioner of Bharti Shastriya Sangeet.

Almost all Indian scientists had deep interest in classical music. My queries are:-

Is Western classical music based on physics and  precisely mathematical in nature?

 Does music feed  the soul of  the  scientist?

Is Indian classical music , especially instrumental  based on principles of physics?

Is there a  link between musical training and development of cognitive skills.? 

 

I have observed that  beats created by two  performing instrumentalists in a Jugalbandhi concert  are nothing but Doppler effect in  sound (physics).

 I also believe that  this  entire universe is filled with patterns and vibrations. You may not see vibrations but they touch you. Many scientists say they've found a curious pattern that's common to musical rhythm. It's a pattern also found in nature. There is music in rain, music in wind, soft and soothing music in breeze, music in chirping of birds , tree leaves clap in symmetry when air passes through them, music in recitation of poetry and music when waves keep striking a sea shore at regular intervals of time. With music, a human being feels a part of the whole creation. And  that is what creativity is all about .

To understand universality of music you need to know what bioacoustics is all about  . This science can be extended  to include plants also apart from animals . 

And  Dr T C Singh ,the  well known Indian botanist   went a little ahead  of J C Bose and wrote this   in his research Papers :-

"Seeds that were exposed to music and later germinated produced plants that had more leaves, were of greater size, and had other improved characteristics. It practically changed the plant's genetic chromosomes."

My suggestion to those who don't believe in  what i say  to kindly read the book "The Sound of Music and Plants" published in 1973 by Dorothy Retallack.

( Avtar Mota)

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