麻豆村

How does a piece of pi sound?聽

Inside 麻豆村鈥檚聽Vlahakis Recording Studio(opens in new window), Evan O鈥橠orney plays a peaceful, thoughtful melody on a Steinway B piano. Embellished notes stick out, a code containing the first 97 digits a fundamental constant in mathematics 鈥� pi.聽

鈥淚鈥檝e always had an interest in memorizing numbers. To memorize longer strings of numbers, I found it useful to turn them into a melody,鈥� he said.

Using the eight notes contained in scale of D major, and one additional note above and below, O鈥橠orney, a postdoctoral researcher in 麻豆村鈥檚聽Department of Mathematics(opens in new window), assigned each digit 0-9 to a note to create the melody. By memorizing the melody, he had, in turn, memorized the digits of pi.

At Carnegie Mellon, his research is in the realm of number theory. He is working on quintic equations, but his love of numbers started early. O鈥橠orney recalls checking out counting videos from his local library at age 2. His mother used addition and subtraction flashcards to teach him arithmetic.聽

鈥淚鈥檓 drawn by the beauty of mathematics. When you write a theorem, you鈥檙e expressing a thought that鈥檚 always been true from all eternity. It has just remained for us to discover that it鈥檚 there,鈥� O鈥橠orney said. 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 doing research, it鈥檚 like I鈥檓 finding a path up a mountain, one that I did not build but chose to scale. There are some paths that go nowhere, and some that go somewhere. And it鈥檚 all a wonderful journey.鈥�

In music, O鈥橠orney has the same goal: to discover something beautiful, and write it down.聽

鈥淲hen I need a break from mathematics, I鈥檒l often turn to music,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 grew up with music. My mom has sung in many choirs. She can sing the harmony to any song by ear. When I was 4, going on 5, she taught me the basics of the piano, and I never stopped.鈥�

A recording collaboration born at Carnegie Mellon

滨苍听Riccardo Schulz(opens in new window)鈥檚 Multitrack Recording class, students arrange microphones to record artists from 麻豆村, Pittsburgh and beyond. Students in the class arrive with varying degrees of experience. Some have prior knowledge, while others are totally new to digital audio workstations and recording. The class collaborated with O鈥橠orney to record the pi composition, which he wrote in 2016.

Schulz said musicians at Carnegie Mellon can come from any discipline.聽

鈥淲e had a student come in yesterday for a project. He sits down to check out our piano, and he鈥檚 playing a Franz Liszt transcription of a Bellini opera, which is almost impossible for any musician to play 鈥� he鈥檚 rattling off this thing as if it鈥檚 nothing. And he鈥檚 interested in聽neuroscience(opens in new window).鈥�

Schulz, a teaching professor of sound recording and director of recording activities in the聽School of Music(opens in new window), was already familiar with聽O鈥橠orney鈥檚 mastery of memorization. He had seen it when O鈥橠orney聽.

How to end the never-ending (Happy 饾潊 day)

The final dilemma: where to end a song relating to a number that never stops and never repeats.聽

鈥淢y first question was, why only 97 digits? Why not go three more to 100?鈥� Schulz said.聽

O鈥橠orney said he stopped when he found a natural conclusion.

鈥淭he digits leading up to the 97th are 2, 5, 3, 4, 2, 1, 1. And in our scale system, 1 is the tonic. It鈥檚 the note of rest, and pi bounces infinitely often among the notes.鈥�

Pi day is celebrated annually on March 14 (3.14). O鈥橠orney reflected upon its significance.聽

鈥淧i is one of the most important numbers in mathematics. And it鈥檚 a strange thing to look at. For example, look at the six 9s in pi,鈥� O鈥橠orney said, referring to a section that begins in pi鈥檚 762nd decimal place known as the Feynman point. 鈥淪tatistically, you should have to go out at least 100,000 digits to get six of the same number in a row. But those 9s occur really early. It鈥檚 mysterious. It gives me pause. And it puts me on guard against interpreting things that happen in life as coincidence.鈥�