Math is the basis for music, but for those of us who aren’t
virtuosic at either, the connection isn’t always easy to grasp.
Which is what makes the videos of Vi Hart, a “mathemusician”
with a dedicated YouTube following, so wonderful. Hart explains
complex phenomena--from cardioids to Carl Gauss--using simple
(and often very) funny means. As Maria Popova pointed out
yesterday, Hart’s latest video is a real doozy. In it, she uses
a music box and a Möbius strip to explain space-time, showing
how the two axes of musical notation (pitch and tempo)
correspond to space and time. Using the tape notation as a model
for space-time, she cuts and folds it to show the finite ways
you can slice and dice the axes. Then, she shows us how you can
loop the tape into a continuous strip of twinkling notes: If you
fold space-time into a Mobius strip, you get your melody, and
then the inversion, the melody played upside down. And then
right side up again. And so on. So rather than folding and
cutting up space-time, just cut and t