Alain Connes: The Music of Shapes

19th Wright Colloquium, Geneva, Nov 5, 2020
Title: The Music of Shapes
Abstract: Quantum physics, especially matrix mechanics, has had a profound influence on mathematical notions of geometric space. This lecture will explain this link by dealing, among other things, with «spectra» and «the music of shapes». Indeed, if the geometrical characteristics of an instrument, for example, determine the sounds it can produce, then conversely, knowledge of the scale and chords produced by an object is sufficient to reconstruct its shape. This property makes it possible to characterize geometrical shapes from invariants that do not refer to a coordinate system. The resulting new geometry, illustrating the mathematical link between visual and auditory perception, has a wealth of applications in physics, in particular for gravitation and quantum physics. This lecture will also be an opportunity to discuss the meaning of the notions of variability and the emergence of time.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

Glad that Professor Connes is still revealing the true secrets of music - from his 2001 book "Triangles of Thought" to his 2011 lecture on spectra and shapes... and now this!

[imaginaryuniverse]

We can tell what sound a mouth will make by reading the geometry of the lips. I think phospholipids work similarly in our biological cells.