We have learned to identify the elements by their image. For some also by their smell. A researcher today offers us to discover the noise they make.
Chemists know this well. Elements absorb and emit light at wavelengths specific to them. Forming spectra that allow them to be identified. Spectra that gave a University of Indiana (USA) researcher the idea to see – or rather hear – what might be there if turned into music in a new exercise in what scientists call sonification. His work was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
This has already been attempted to some extent in the past. Walker Smith, he wanted to better explain the complexity and nuances of the spectra of the individual elements of the periodic table. He developed computer code that converts light data into mixes of notes. There, the wavelengths of each color become individual sine waves whose frequency corresponds to that of the light and whose amplitude corresponds to the luminosity of that light. With a few adjustments so that the human ear always remains sensitive.
The music of chemistry
Result: The simplest elements like hydrogen (H) or helium (He) sound a bit like chords. Others are played from a collection of more complex sounds. Calcium (Ca), for example, rings like bells at a rate that results from the interaction of frequencies. Zinc, on the other hand, with its multitude of colors, sounds like “a choir of angels singing a major chord with vibrato”.
For Walker Smith, the next step is to create an interactive musical periodic table that lets you select an element while seeing a real-time display of its visible light spectrum and hearing the associated sound. He has already recorded a show built from the sound of large molecules. And beyond the artistic aspect, the researcher suggests his work could help in chemistry class