Higgs Boson Announcement at CERN

[Bruce Dazzling]

[Seamus OBlimey]

Well, now they've found it...



...they're going to have to "repurpose" CERN..

B3ta

Damn! I swore I'd never nick stuff from there again.

[Allegro]

---

This melody wouldn’t be the sort you’d hum after hearing a musical score to a movie in which you would’ve heard a simpler motif some twenty times. What follows is music composed within global, high-speed research networks that must rely on sonification.

This image shows us the three pitches, circled in light red, that distinguish the Higgs Boson-like particle. The three sequential pitches are F, C and E, which are the “bump” clearly identifiable as the highest pitches in the melody of data.


^ from Forbes dot com

I’ve added it to RI because I got excited about the solo track and its subsequent track of an instrumental arrangement, both of which are mp3’s linked at the bottom of this post.

The distinction noted in the final paragraph in the GÉANT article fascinates me.

“Previous sonification projects from the team include the creation of music from volcanic activity around the world, making it easier to spot potential eruptions by listening to changes in musical pitch.”

_________________
Sonification enables world to hear new Higgs Boson-like particle
GÉANT | 10 July 2012 | Cambridge, UK

Discovery now music to the ears of everybody!

Through a combination of high speed research networks, advanced sonification techniques and grid computing the world can now ‘hear’ the newly discovered Higgs Boson-like particle.

Research networks, including the pan-European GÉANT network, were critical components in the global infrastructure that helped find the new particle, delivering immense volumes of experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to thousands of scientists around the world for analysis and then providing the connectivity for them to share their results amongst the entire research community.

On Wednesday 4th July 2012, scientists at CERN announced that they had found a Higgs-like particle after analysing results from the Large Hadron Collider. Researchers detected a “bump” in their data corresponding to a particle weighing in at 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), consistent with the Higgs Boson, which is believed to give mass to all other particles. This consequently proves the Standard Model, which is the dominant theory of how the universe works at the subatomic level.

Building on this achievement, the same research networks have now been a central part of turning these scientific findings into music using data sonification. Working from results supplied by the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), researchers have created melodies that make the results easier to understand.


Domenico Vicinanza, DANTESonification requires enormous amounts of networking and processing power to produce results. Creating the Higgs melody consequently relied on high-speed research networks including the pan-European GÉANT network, which operates at speed of up to 10Gbps and the EGI grid computing infrastructure. Grid computing works by linking together multiple computers in different locations via high speed networks, combining their processing power to deliver faster results when analysing enormous volumes of data.

The project was coordinated by Domenico Vicinanza of DANTE (the UK-based organisation that operates the GÉANT network on behalf of European national research and education networks (NRENs)), in collaboration with Mariapaola Sorrentino of ASTRA Project, Cambridge, who contributed to the sonification process and Giuseppe La Rocca from INFN Catania, responsible for the computing framework.

In the music the peak of high notes in the second bar is the appearance of the Higgs-like particle (about 3.5 seconds into the recording). The researchers created two versions, one as a piano solo, and the second with added bass, percussion, marimba and xylophone.



“The discovery of the Higgs-like particle is a major step forward in our knowledge of the world around us,” said Domenico Vicinanza, DANTE. “By using sonification we are able to make this breakthrough easier to understand by the general public, highlighting the depth and breadth of the enormous research efforts by the thousands of scientists around the world involved with the Large Hadron Collider. Neither the discovery of the particle or this sonification process would have been possible without the high speed research networks that connect scientists across the world, enabling them to collaborate, analyse data and share their results.”

Previous sonification projects from the team include the creation of music from volcanic activity around the world, making it easier to spot potential eruptions by listening to changes in musical pitch.

Click on the links below to listen to the Higgs Boson-like particle:
⋅ Piano solo (mp3)
⋅ Piano, bass, percussion, marimba and xylophone (mp3)
⋅ The data on which the sonification is based [data image shown below]

(ATLAS collaboration – copyright CERN)


⋅ The score of the sonification (PDF)

For more information, see:
Research networks help LHC unlock the mysteries of the universe

[hanshan]

^^^^

“Previous sonification projects from the team include the creation of music from volcanic activity around the world, making it easier to spot potential eruptions by listening to changes in musical pitch.”

Whoa - wicked cool

piano solo is excellent

Thanks, Allegro


...

[slimmouse]

deleted for its stupidity.

[Hammer of Los]

...

I’ve added it to RI because I got excited about the solo track and its subsequent track of an instrumental arrangement, both of which are mp3’s linked at the bottom of this post.

Cool man.

I just read a poem out to that as accompaniment.

It went suprisingly well.

...

[Allegro]

“Previous sonification projects from the team include the creation of music from volcanic activity around the world, making it easier to spot potential eruptions by listening to changes in musical pitch.”

Whoa - wicked cool
piano solo is excellent
Thanks, Allegro
...

hanshan, thank you. There’s more, too.

I read elsewhere that the piano tones or pitches heard in the sonified Higgs Boson-like particle melody solo mp3 were produced from pitches digitally recorded from the Bösendorfer piano. I suspect tones for the mp3 arrangement that include bass, percussion (i.e, shakers), marimba and xylophone lines were recorded the same way; that is, original pitches played on acoustical instruments were digitally pre-recorded. There are of course software packs available with pre-recordings of all pitches of most traditional, western instruments required by orchestral composers.

The Higgs Boson-like particle melody has been sequenced; that is, each tone played on piano holds the exact time allotted according to the score. Another way to say that: an indication of a human hand playing the melody on piano is missing. The precision in that piano performance is so perfect that only Glenn Gould resurrected could come close to playing the exactness as heard in the mp3. The melody, at the tempo performed, is not friendly to a pianist: there are humongous leaps between some notes.

Another of what creates an elegance while listening to the mp3 arrangement is the sequenced syncopations. They are exactly played according to the score when played by piano, bass or xylophone with the slightest bit of reverberation to smooth the lines.

<begin personal perspective>
We listeners don’t know what parts, if any, of original data were compromised. Remembering the Higgs Boson-like particle melody and its arrangement, as we’ve heard them online, have been produced for listening by the general public. I’m personally relieved that producers didn’t add even the slightest indication of style or rhythm reminding listeners of today’s pop music. Honestly, I don’t know that I could be more captivated by those productions, just as they are.
<end personal perspective>

The GÉANT press release, with regard to music, was surprisingly understated and refreshingly so. I would think the GÉANT editors, and musicians and scientists involved with sonification, are likely more than just a little musically inclined by being well informed, musically educated, and understanding general populations as well as trained musicians and scientists are listening, globally.

[Allegro]

This thread was introduced a year ago.

Good background materials, here.

They may have found it. If not then they are close to eliminating the Standard Model Higgs particle but numerous other Higgs particles will still be possible. A good place to read about all of this is Of Particular Significance.

[Allegro]

Stephen Hawking and CERN LHC Team Each Win $3 Million Prize
Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson | 11DEC12


^ Stephen Hawking visited the Large Hadron Collider’s underground tunnel at Europe’s CERN particle physics research center in 2006. Hawking and seven CERN researchers receiving multimillion-dollar prizes from the Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation. Image credit: CERN

Two $3,000,000 special physics prizes have been awarded to Stephen Hawking and to seven scientists who led the effort to discover a Higgs-like particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation, backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced the awards today, saying that Hawking is honored for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black holes “and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe,” and that the prize money for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, is being shared among a scientist who administered the building of the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider and six physicists who directed two teams of 3,000 scientists each.

The $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize is awarded annually by the nonprofit Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation to recognize “transformative advances in the field.” The $3 million prize may also be given at any time outside the formal nomination process “in exceptional cases,” according to the Foundation. When the Foundation’s prize intentions were announced in July of this year, Milner said, “I hope the new prize will bring long overdue recognition to the greatest minds working in the field of fundamental physics, and if this helps encourage young people to be inspired by science, I will be deeply gratified.”

The Foundation said the seven were being honored “for their leadership role in the scientific endeavor that led to the discovery of the new Higgs-like particle by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.” They will share the $3 million prize equally.

Resume.

[beeline]

Link

CERN now 99.999999999% sure it has found the Higgs boson

In one of the last updates before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) shuts down until 2015, CERN has announced that its observation of the Higgs boson (or a particle that is Higgs-like) is now approaching 7 sigma certainty.

5 sigma — 99.9999% certainty, or more correctly a 0.00001% chance that you have made a faulty observation — is the threshold for an observation to be labeled a scientific discovery. CERN crossed the 5 sigma threshold this summer. At 7 sigma, both the CMS and ATLAS teams are reporting that there’s only a 0.0000000001% chance that they haven’t found a Higgs-like particle.

Over the last few months you may have noticed the use of the phrase “Higgs-like,” rather than “Higgs boson.” This is because CERN and the scientific community can’t be certain that they’ve actually found the Higgs boson — all they know is that they’ve found a particle, with a mass of around 125 GeV, that behaves as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. With its discovery now completely and utterly confirmed, further analysis (due in 2013) will now focus on the particle’s spin, and other properties. Eventually, perhaps after upgrades are completed and the LHC turns back on in 2015, the particle will be officially announced as the Higgs boson (or not, which would be much more interesting).

[Allegro]

You may want to listen to this simplest of sonified Higgs Boson-like particle melodies on mp3 before listening to the Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification mp3 demo, also linked in the press release, below. Not surprisingly, you will hear parts of similar phrases in each, noting the pitches might be different, and some intervals between pitches similar if not exact.

The link to the Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification mp3 with drums was inadvertently deleted by me, several days ago. I’ve hunted that mp3, high and low! Anyway, if I remember correctly, I think the understated percussion instruments sounded rhythms that would apparently accompany simple dance steps.

Refer Domenico Vicinanza profile | Lost Sounds Orchestra | GÉANT Arts and Culture | GÉANT Project Home | DANTE Home

I’ve added links and highlights in this November, 2012, GÉANT press release.

_________________
Cambridge, UK | 12th November

2012 Live at [Sound Cloud] SC12 - GÉANT to illustrate the power of research and education networks and grid computing by sonifying data from NASA Voyager 1, the 35 year old space probe 18 billion kilometres from Earth.

Launched in 1977 to study the outer solar system, Voyager 1 is amazingly still transmitting data to NASA’s Deep Space Network on Earth.

The craft continues to explore our universe many years after its original mission ended in 1980, thanks to its radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Recent data has shown an increase in galactic cosmic rays and charged particles, which Voyager scientists are leading to conclude… “humanity’s first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.” Domenico Vicinanza, a product manager within the GÉANT project will be downloading the NASA data from the Voyager 1 craft, live at booth #3650 at SC12. It will then be sent across the Atlantic to EGI.eu, the biggest grid computing facility in Europe, using links procured through the ACE partnership and through SCInet, Internet2 and GÉANT networks. A sonification algorithm will convert data into melodies which will then travel back to Salt Lake City where they will be arranged in a concert piece and played live.

Why sonification?
Data sonification is the representation of data by means of sound signals. Sonification is increasingly used in many fields, from data analysis to monitoring, from training to the arts. At SC12, the music will be used to demonstrate how research and education networking together with grid computing can provide vast computing resources to academic users, in this case to cooperatively enable an artistic demonstration based on data audification. The sound files will be made available after the show. If you would like to be notified once they are added, please email prm@dante.net with your contact details. Come and be one of the first people ever to discover the sound of interstellar space and the edge of the solar system as we know it!

The sonification demos took place at the GÉANT booth #3650 on: Monday between 6.00pm and 9.00pm and Tuesday between 1.00pm - 2.30pm and on demand.
Please click on the [link] player below to listen to a recording of the demo.

Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification mp3 (no drums)

Acknowledgements
Please acknowledge the NASA National Space Science Data Center and the Space Physics Data Facility for usage of Voyager 1 data from this site in publications and presentations.

Sonification credits:
Mariapaola Sorrentino (ASTRA and LHCOpenSymphony, Cambridge, UK) and Giuseppe La Rocca (INFN Catania, Italy)

[hanshan]

...


^^^

Excellent. Thanks, Allegro


...

[Allegro]

Thanks, hanshan. I erred in the post above by indicating the acronym, SC, as Sound Cloud. Now that I’ve done more reading, the definition of SC in this context is Science Clouds, which provides compute cycles in the cloud for scientific communities using Nimbus. Sound Cloud is a web site for uploads. I guess everyone remembered that except me!

From here on, every sonification (of sonic data to music) I listen to will be compared to the elegance of sonified music compositions attributed to Domenico Vicinanza, whose brief introduction I’ve transcribed and posted, below.

~ A.

_________________
Higgs Boson Song Composed From Research Data
Posted six months ago at Sound Cloud.

Domenico Vicinanza is a particle physicist and a composer and has written a song whose notes are defined by the data points drawn from the research around the Higgs boson.

Announcer | “Last week, researchers at CERN, the nuclear research facility in Switzerland, unveiled Higgs Boson, the subatomic particle. Well, this week, researchers in Cambridge, England, unveiled Higgs Boson, The Musical, sort of. Higgs Boson is the particle that supposedly gives everything in the Universe its mass. Since the announcement last week, a researcher named Domenico Vicinanza and his team in Cambridge, England, have sonified it. Vicinanza works with DANTE, or Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe. He’s a particle physicist and a professional composer, so who better to convert Higgs Boson to a melody? Here’s how he did it.”

DV | “In order to take a subatomic particle, like the Higgs boson, and [convert] it into melody, to note, what we [did] was basically take the data and associate it to each one of the numeric values [to] single notes on a score. Melody is basically following exactly the same behavior the scientific data is showing. [music plays] So, when the piano starts playing, you can hear some really, really high pitched notes. Those high pitched notes, that’s three of them in particular. Listen carefully. [music plays] They [three high pitched notes] are the signature of the Higgs boson melody, and that’s corresponding to a peak in the scientific draft, which is shown at CERN. [music plays]

“The actual data points are played by the piano at the beginning, and then played by the piano and marimba in the second repetition, so that the marimba plays the lower notes, and the piano will play the higher notes. It sounds like a Cuban habanera, but this is just a coincidence. [music plays]

“Most of the analysis technique that we have today are mostly visual, and this is actually preventing all the visually impaired and blind people to work on this analysis.

“I believe music and science share the same quest for harmony, for symmetry, for regularity, if you like. I thoroughly believe that science can offer musicians a wonderful way to look for interesting melodies, interesting harmonies, interesting sonic phenomena that can be taken and used by a composer to create some real entertainment.” [music plays]

Announcer | “Higgs Boson, The Musical. Physicist and composer, Domenico Vicinanza, sonified the Higgs boson particle.” [music plays]

[Allegro]

See this post for reference.
The Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification

Both the orchestral version with percussion and the orchestral version without percussion were uploaded one month ago, and can be heard on this page. As with the usual playlist function, once you’ve clicked the topmost white arrow in the orange circle, the orchestral version with percussion will be immediately followed by the orchestral version without percussion.

Refer Higgs Boson-like Particle Sonification | The Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification | Domenico Vicinanza profile | Lost Sounds Orchestra | GÉANT Arts and Culture | GÉANT Project Home | DANTE Home

[Allegro]

More on sonification. Highlights mine.

_________________
Singing Volcanoes: Scientists Translate Volcanic Behavior into Sound Waves
Science Daily, press release | 10AUG06


^ Mount Etna, Italy, showing cinder
cone. (Photograph by J. Lowenstern /
courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey)

Predicting eruptions will become easier now scientists are using technology to translate the patterns in a volcano’s behaviour into sound waves. The EU funded “Enabling Grids for E-sciencE” (EGEE) and the “E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America” (EELA) projects, which are already investigating volcano sonification at Mount Etna, Sicily, are using the GÉANT2 and ALICE-RedCLARA networks to further extend this important study to include Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano.

The research project, which brings together experts from Europe and Latin America, digitally collects geophysical information on seismic movements before using data sonification to transform them into audible sound waves, which can then be ‘scored’ as melodies. The resulting ‘music’ is then analysed for patterns of behaviour and used to identify similarities in eruption dynamics and so predict future activity.

The software used for sonification was first developed by Dr. Domenico Vicinanza at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) for use at Mount Etna, the tallest volcano in Europe. Following the initial work, Dr. Vicinanza and a team of scientists, led by Prof. Roberto Barbera from the University of Catania, are now collaborating with colleagues in Ecuador to study the Tungurahua volcano, transferring data across GÉANT2 to the ALICE-RedCLARA network using a transatlantic 622 Mbps connection. The Ecuadorian National Research and Education Network (CEDIA) is responsible for the connection to the scientists based at Tungurahua itself.

“Through expanding this research to include Latin America’s volcanoes we are hopeful we can build on and further develop the extensive data and information we have already obtained from the studies at Mount Etna,” said Prof. Barbera, Technical Coordinator of the EELA project. “Data sonification can be considered the acoustic counterpart of data graphic visualisation and is key to expanding our knowledge of volcanic seismic patterns to gain a deeper understanding of volcanic activity, especially when this activity precedes eruptive phenomena,” continued Dr. Vicinanza, from CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.

Dai Davies, General Manager of DANTE, said: “This project is contributing new knowledge to volcanic research and we are delighted to be providing the networking support needed for the international exchange of scientific learning. The ability to be able to translate geophysical data into sound waves is not only exciting but could prove vital to predicting future eruptions, benefiting everyone in these regions.”

GÉANT2 is the world’s most advanced research and education network and is co-funded by Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and the European Commission. Managed by research networking organisation DANTE, it supports a community of over 30 million users in Europe. The ALICE (America Latina Interconectada Con Europa) project was set up in 2003 to develop the RedCLARA network, which provides IP research network infrastructure within the Latin American region and towards Europe. Also managed by DANTE, it has 4 European and 19 Latin American partners, including the Latin American research networking association CLARA.

EGEE operates a service Grid infrastructure, which is used to share computing and storage resources across more than 200 sites in 40 countries. Running on top of the GÉANT2 network, it facilitates collaboration between researchers at the various institutions and geographical sites involved. EELA is EGEE’s counterpart in Latin America, and creates a digital bridge between grid infrastructures in both regions, utilising the ALICE-RedCLARA infrastructure as the underlying network. EELA is run by a consortium of 21 partners from 10 countries (7 in Latin America and 3 in Europe).

Listen to the melody created by Mount Etna (mp3 9.2 mb)

REFER Higgs Boson-like Particle Sonification | The Voyager 1 Magnetic Field Sonification | Domenico Vicinanza profile | Lost Sounds Orchestra | GÉANT Arts and Culture | GÉANT Project Home | DANTE Home