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From "Physics, Waves, Music": a website about the physics of waves and sound, acoustics of musical instruments, musical scales, harmony and music.

General Information

This website was created in 2006 as a project of the Physics Department of the Univeristy of Modena e Reggio Emilia within the Progetto Lauree Scientifiche, in collaboration with CNR - Institute of Nanoscience, Center S3, Modena.

Project leader and main author

Carlo Andrea Rozzi is a Senior Researcher at the Nanoscience Institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-NANO) in Modena. He graduated in physics cum laude from the University of Pavia, obtained his PhD at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and worked as a postdoctoral researcher with E. K. U. Gross at the Freie Universität Berlin, before joining the S3 centre of INFM (later CNR-NANO) in Modena in 2005.

His main research field is the theory and simulation of excited states and ultrafast dynamics in matter. He contributes to the development of time-dependent density-functional theory and of the open-source code octopus, and applies them, together with experimental groups, to charge separation in nano-structured light-harvesting systems and organic photovoltaics, vibronic processes in molecules and attosecond dynamics in semiconductors. His recent work combines real-time and non-adiabatic approaches to follow how electrons and nuclei move together in the first femtoseconds after light absorption, with the aim of guiding the design of materials for solar-energy conversion and optoelectronics.

A violinist trained at the Piacenza Conservatory, he has built a second line of work in musical acoustics and sound perception: a listening test comparing Stradivari violins with other instruments (Journal of the Acoustical Society of America), smartphone noise measurements in a citizen-science campaign (PLOS ONE) and the sound of a phase transition in a shape-memory alloy (American Journal of Physics). He teaches the physics of sound in advanced training courses.

The two fields meet in teaching and science communication. A former secondary-school teacher of mathematics and physics, he uses sound and music as a gateway to the physics of waves: from the Fisica Onde Musica website and its interactive apps to laboratories such as "Orizzonti Sonori" at the Genoa Science Festival, and from the 2020 citizen-science campaign "Scienza sul Balcone – suono" to the CNR live-stream series #TuttiInMusica. He has also worked with the violin makers of Cremona, as scientific director of the TARLO project of the International Violin-Making School, and on art installations at the Venice Biennale and elsewhere. He is regularly committed to science popularization through public seminars and on the media.

e-mail: carloandrea.rozzi@nano.cnr.it; web: CNR-NANO

Collaborators

short cv in Italian

Mission

  • General goals:
    1. stimulate curiosity of young people about physics;
    2. provide multimedia materials for didactic purposes;
    3. contributing to basic instruction in scientific disciplines;
    4. contribute to popularization of science;
  • User objectives:
    1. easily and effectively visualize wave phenomena in the time domain;
    2. connect basic textbook notions to more realistic and appealing situations;
    3. make first-person experience of the scientific attitude and method, checking how simple study cases are addressed. Understand the unifying and predictive power of science;
    4. acknowledge the broad cultural value, and not only the technical content of exact sciences

Intended audience

I contenuti sono organizzati su due diversi livelli interconnessi.

  1. Il livello più elementare è particolarmente adatto a tutti coloro che, pur non possedendo una specifica preparazione scientifica, sono interessati ai fenomeni sonori, al mondo delle onde, sono curiosi di conoscere i collegamenti tra la scienza dei suoni e la musica, e cercano strumenti semplici e interattivi che permettano di "toccare con mano" i fenomeni ondulatori
  2. Il livello più avanzato è dedicato a chi, possedendo già una preparazione scientifica di base, vuole approfondire o aggiornare le proprie nozioni, "renderle vive" tramite la sperimentazione interattiva, o a chi cerca (come gli insegnanti) una fonte di ausili multimediali per la divulgazione e la didattica scientifica

Acknowledgments

We thank all the people who contributed to the creation and dissemination of this website, and in particular:

  • Franca Manghi, Elisa Molinari, Guido Goldoni, Maddalena Scandola, Davide Calanca for supporting us within Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Università, and CNR-NANO S3, Modena;
  • Andrea Ferroni, Trevor J. Cox, Paul Falstad, Illes Farkas, Stefano Ruffo, Stefano Oss, for sharing their exciting work;
  • Valerio Carboni for the recording of the sound samples;
  • Comaci Boschi (flute), Clara Fanticini (violin), Mariachiara Gallo (mezzosoprano), Francesco Gibellini (trumpet), Francesco Luglini (oboe), Matteo Manzini (percussions), Gaetano Nenna (clarinet) who enthusiastically agreed to play their instruments in an non-standard way ;
  • Laura Tagliavini, Giuseppina Agnati, Stefano Rozzi, for their creative contributions, support, patience and trust;
  • all the software community and developers of the tools we used.

Software tools

"Physics, Waves, Music": a website about the physics of waves, acoustics of musical instruments, musical scales, harmony and music.