The Department of Physics will today host Professor Steve Errede of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Department of Physics, who will present a lecture on the physics of music and musical instruments on Thursday, December 1 in Life Sciences, room 111. The department invites all members of the IIT community to attend the lecture.

Errede has presented lectures and demonstrations on the physics of music and musical instruments at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for more than a decade. Such lectures explore classical wave behavior as it pertains to music and musical instruments, emphasizing the complex nature of acoustical sound fields. Demonstrations include phase-sensitive measurements of the acoustical properties of sound/musical instruments.

Errede will discuss various examples of the acoustical properties of sound/musical instruments that can be measured, as well as some interesting aspects of the human perception of sound as they relate to the physics of music, and why music is (apparently) important to us as human beings.

If intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, would those beings also enjoy music? What would their music sound like? Errede will explore these questions and more.