Peter Pesic

United States (residence) °1948
en

Peter Pesic is Director of the Science Institute, Tutor Emeritus, and Musician-in-Residence at St. John’s College, Santa Fe (New Mexico, USA). He is the author of Music and the Making of Modern Science (MIT Press, 2014), Sky in a Bottle (2005), Abel's Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability (2003), Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature (2002), and Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science (2000), as well as editions of works by Max Planck, James Clerk Maxwell, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Hermann Weyl, along with papers on the history of science and music. Contact: ppesic[at]sjc.edu.

research

research expositions

  • Pythagorean Longings and Cosmic Symphonies: The Musical Rhetoric of String Theory and the Sonification of Particle Physics (2014) author(s): Peter Pesic, Axel Volmar published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
    String theory posits very small “strings” whose various modes of vibration produce the observed particles and forces of nature, often described through analogies with music, especially Pythagorean harmonies. We analyze the rationales and implications for enlisting this archaic lore to explain such a modern theory, especially factors connecting internal and external aspects of scientific research: the economic pressure to promote a promising but unproven theory, the quasi-religious appeal of Pythagorean teachings and their consequent aesthetics of the “beautiful theory.” In contrast, sonifications of high energy physics data from the LHC seems to refer more to contemporary music than the “cosmic music” pioneered by Beethoven and carried forward by Stravinsky and Schoenberg.
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