August 2015

Video: Humans Respond To Fractals
How certain mathematic patters within music affect humans.
Article By Steven R. Rochlin

  PBS  has revealed that math and music can be closely linked and how fractal rhythms affect the human mind. According to PBS, "Physicist Holger Henning and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany found self-similar patterns in the drum pattern of a recording of the 1980s hit song "I Keep Forgettin'" by Michael McDonald... Loosely speaking, a fractal pattern is distinctly recognizable no matter how much you zoom in or out, a property known as self-similarity."

They say that scientists have recently noticed that musical rhythms created by musicians tend to have a fractal nature that cause humans in a engaging manner. Kerry Klein wrote, concerning Physicist Holger Henning findings within Science News that "It seems that the timekeeper in the brain not only produces fractal timing, but likely also fractal intensity or, in this case, loudness."

Hennig and his team discovered that both the intervals and volumes can be understood as a fractal pattern called "1/f noise".

They said that "In this kind of noise, each octave carries the same amount of energy per unit time... What's more, the loudness and spacing were independent of each other, suggesting drummer Jeff Porcaro (within the song "I Keep Forgettin'") was controlling them separately. The work, a glimpse into the brain of a talented and prolific musician, offers a fascinating picture of what makes human music human."