Yesterday, a couple of astrophysics grad students and I went on a mini road trip to Ann Arbor to see two string quartets perform (both as individual quartets and as an octet). It turns out that the composer of one of the octets studied astronomy at Yale before becoming a composer. Brian May got his Ph.D. in astrophysics as well, although he took a long hiatus in the middle of it to be a rock star. Maybe the question I should have asked is rather, what is it about astrophysics people and music?
 
Incidentally, ensembles in Michigan seem to play a lot of brand new music. For the second and third pieces in this concert, the composer of each came up to the stage at the end of the piece (at least I didn't find myself sitting next to any of them this time). The last piece they played was an oh-so-famous Mendelssohn octet, and I said, "If the composer comes up after this one...."
 
When I was an undergrad, I met a mathematics grad student who saw music, especially Beethoven's, as geometric shapes. It was fascinating talking to him about it. I wonder if we could find an alternative way to present physics by musical-visual correspondences rather than by mathematical-visual correspondences. Using math to understand physics is an awful lot like reading sheet music. The symbols can be kind of aesthetic, but it's what they mean that's the point. I suppose I have a similar trouble with music as with physics--I can sight-read OK (look at equations), but I have to hear the music (picture the physical situation) before I can really get into it.
 
Note: this idea of transcribing physics with music was probably first introduced to me by a particular set of Star Wars books which tend to be very unpopular among Star Wars fans but which have some interesting ideas about the science community. I'll probably discuss this series in a later entry.