Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Family Lecture for National Science & Engineering Week

The Science of Music

by Professor Peter Main of York University.

This promises to be a fascinating family lecture for anyone interested in music and for any grandchildren (or children!) who are around 10 or older.

Report
by Stephen Lusty

The noted physicist Professor Peter Main is ‘noted’ not just for his crystallography work at York University, but literally ‘noted’ also in the musical sense in that he is an adept and committed organist.

It was not surprising therefore that he used both real and makeshift wind instruments with which to tease and please his audience at the Science Week Family Lecture. Swinging an 8m hosepipe held at the other end by his daughter, he demonstrated the correlation between wave length and wave frequency. He also produced a wonderful harmonic by pushing air with a variable speed fan through a long ,large diameter pipe. All sound waves were visualised on screen for the audience by showing their changing patterns by means of an oscilloscope.

The many primary school children who were present from Scarcroft Primary School as well as from other schools in York concluded the afternoon with some stunningly sensible questions given confidently through the roving microphone.