The Music of Physics

This textbook is written for a very specific purpose and audience: It serves as a breadth requirement for a general education program at the college level for non-science majors. It is intended to satisfy a science-and-technology, quantitative-reasoning, and, optionally, a lab requirement. It is also suitable for an introductory course at the high school level. Music is an excellent medium to introduce physics to novice scientists, as it provides an intuitive understanding of the physics of waves, unlike standard approaches to physics, which can be quite unintuitive and, hence, frustrating. While there are no mathematical derivations in the text, labs, most of which can be performed by students with readily available materials, are provided to verify every concept and equation in the book. Unlike many introductory texts on the physics of music, the book is not restricted to purely musical topics. Each topic is carefully chosen to relate to broader principles applicable to other areas of physics or technology. This is not meant to be a highly technical treatise on sound and musical instruments, which is not suitable for a general education course. Rather, it shows deep connections between waves and many areas of modern physics to make the text engaging and relevant to the students.

Key features:

• Music provides an intuitive introduction to Modern Physics and Quantum Mechanics
• Rather than presenting the physics behind music, this book demonstrates how music inspired and motivated many aspects of physics throughout history
• While music is the unifying theme, all topics are chosen to relate to other areas of physics
• A limited but powerful set of quantitative skills are developed that are accessible to novice scientists
• Detailed labs are provided to test every formula and concept in the textbook