Music and Physics

There is an old book that titled "Music, Physics and Engineering" published in 1967 by Harry Ferdinand Olson. It's a good book, but it can't show actual sample because it is just a paper. ;-)

Now, "Web Audio API" of "HTML5" is available, even if it has some restriction. We can try some experiments. The following is some of such samples.

First of all, please type following buttons from right to left. The number on the above button shows the frequency of the sound.

Now, please type following buttons from right to left.

People who familiar with European style music institutions may feel strange with the first buttons, but feel normal with the second one. Of course, it's a same, even if you play from left to right.

Some of you might head following idea.
If there are two notes, and one note is one octave higher than the other note. The frequency of the one note is two times of the frequency of the others. But, many of you feel different. Please try above buttons again, and see each frequency.

As you can see or hear, the sense of human is different from a simple physics. The differences like this were already recognized in the 1970s, when I wrote my graduation thesis.

Let's see about the pitch on the Next page.