The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe

by Stephon Alexander

Overview

A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane

More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music.

Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim — The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics.

The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465093571
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	163,417
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Stephon Alexander is a professor of theoretical physics at Brown University, an established jazz musician, and an immigrant from Trinidad who grew up in the Bronx. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and a founding faculty Director of Brown University's Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time. His work has been featured by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and many other outlets. He has been a guest on Nova, the “Brian Lehrer Show”, and Neil deGrasse Tyson's “StarTalk,” among much else. The author of Fear of a Black Universe and The Jazz of Physics, Alexander lives in Providence, Rhode Island. 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Giant Steps 11

2 Lessons from Leon 27

3 All Rivers Lead to Cosmic Structure 41

4 Beauty on Trial 51

5 Pythagorean Dream 69

6 Eno, the Sound Cosmologist 85

7 Thriving on a Riff 93

8 The Ubiquity of Vibration 101

9 The Defiant Physicists 117

10 The Space We Live In 125

11 Sonic Black Hole 137

12 The Harmony of Cosmic Structure 145

13 A Journey into Mark Turner's Quantum Brain 159

14 Feynman's Jazz Pattern 171

15 Cosmic Resonance 179

16 The Beauty of Noise 189

17 The Musical Universe 203

18 Interstellar Space 215

Epilogue 229

Acknowledgments 233

Notes 235

Index 243

About the Author 255

Editorial Reviews

"I'll forever be grateful to musician/physicist Stephon Alexander.... He'll help you see how our awe-inspiring universe is on a never-ending, cosmological riff."—Felix Contreras, NPR, "Best Books of 2016"

"Interwoven with solid physics and personal anecdotes, the book does an admirable job of bringing together modern jazz and modern physics."—Physics World, Shortlisted for "Book of the Year (2016)"

"In the most engaging chapters of this book — part memoir, part history of science, part physics popularization and part jazz lesson — Dr. Alexander ventures far out onto the cutting edge of modern cosmology, presenting a compelling case for vibration and resonance being at the heart of the physical structure we find around us, from the smallest particle of matter to the largest clusters of galaxies.... His report on the state of research into the structure and history of the universe — his own academic field — makes for compelling reading, as does his life story."—Dan Tepfer, New York Times

"[Alexander] gives an engaging account of his uncertainties and worries as he made his way in the highly competitive world of theoretical physics, seeking to acquire the 'chops' needed to deal with the formidable mathematics of his day job along with those needed to solo on the sax after dark.... Mr. Alexander's rhapsodic excitement is infectious."—Peter Pesic, Wall Street Journal

"Marvelous."—New Scientist

"The book's attempt to bring together modern jazz and modern physics strikes me as admirable.... It is an intriguing comparison, and it certainly seems fresher than drawing analogies between classical music and classical physics.... Time to put on some Coltrane and riff some new research ideas?—Trevor Cox, Physics World

"Groundbreaking.... [Alexander] illustrates his points with colorful examples, ranging from the Big Bang to the eye of a galactic hurricane."—Down Beat

"Alexander’s account of his own rise from humble beginnings to produce contributions to both cosmology and jazz is as interesting as the marvelous connections he posits between jazz and physics."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

…[Alexander's] report on the state of research into the structure and history of the universe…makes for compelling reading, as does his life story.

The New York Times - Dan Tepfer

03/21/2016
Using his own life as the baseline, Alexander, a professor of physics at Brown University, sweetly riffs on deep connections between music and cosmology. Alexander begins with his childhood and youth, during which he discovered his own passions for both physics and jazz. His life story is filled with physics mentors with serious jazz chops as well as encounters with “physics-enthusiast musicians” such as Yusef Lateef, Ornette Coleman, and Brian Eno. Alexander likens theoretical physics to jazz improvisation and discusses the ways that being a jazz musician has benefited his own theories. Those without a background in musicology and cosmology may have difficulty following some of Alexander’s lines of thought, but most of his conclusions are readily grasped. In a key example, he lays out how the structure of the universe arises from a “pattern of vibration,” much like a musical composition. Alexander, the son of a New York cab driver from Trinidad, concludes by sharing his dream that the work of physics, like jazz improvisation, will be enriched by practitioners from many backgrounds. Alexander’s account of his own rise from humble beginnings to produce contributions to both cosmology and jazz is as interesting as the marvelous connections he posits between jazz and physics. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2016-02-17
Look to jazz greats like John Coltrane for insights into subatomic particles and the history of the cosmos. In this loosely autobiographical meditation, Alexander (Physics/Brown Univ.) explores resonances between music and physics in Pythagoras' "music of the spheres," Albert Einstein's love of music, Coltrane's love of Einstein, and his own ideas as a theoretical physicist and jazz saxophonist. It's a vast, cosmic theme that includes quantum mechanics, superstring theory, the Big Bang, the evolution of galaxies, and the process of scientific theorizing itself. Alexander mines music for analogies to physical reality and credits jam sessions as a method of opening his mind to scientific insights. The comparison between music and physics rests on the fact that sound is a wave with similarities to the wave phenomena that underlie modern physics. That observation sometimes yields illuminating results—e.g., the notion that the early universe contained tiny density fluctuations that looked like 300,000-light-year-long sound waves and eventually clumped into stars and galaxies. Unfortunately, Alexander rarely finds a satisfying middle ground between facile metaphor—"in jazz combos, the ‘gravitational' pull comes from the bass and drums"—and obscure arcana. Most of the discussions (and the accompanying diagrams and math equations) are rapturous but murky. Many are too difficult and sketchily explained for laypeople to grasp, whether they are about physics—"D-branes were the objects that carried the Ramond-Ramond charge the same way a point particle (0-brane) carries electric charge"—music theory ("in the key of C, the V is a G-dominant chord and its mirror image/tritone for G is D-flat dominant"), or the effusions of jazzman Sonny Rollins ("I don't want to play the music; I want the music to play me"). Alexander's enthusiasm for his subject is infectious, but that won't help readers fully understand it. A physics-for-poets guide that's more exuberant than enlightening.

Kirkus Reviews