Michael
Levy tackles New Age Cognitive Dissonance in his newest blog about
vibrations and what they can and cannot accomplish. Check out the link
and tell him what you think!
Is 432 Hz New Age Schmertz?
After drowning in a veritable Tsunami of gigabytes of 'information' on the Internet that 432 Hz is the frequency of the cosmos, that it is the resonant frequency of human DNA and even that there is an global conspiracy to infiltrate the 'evil' sound of the note A at 440 Hz into our dialing tones, I decided to dust some of the cobwebs off my hard earned philosophy degree from 1989 and get down to some serious epistemological excavations through this veritable muddled mountain of New Age mayhem, to valiantly strive to extract some actual facts from the cognitive carnage which surrounds the mystery of the reference pitch of A at 432 Hz!
The following brand new blog is the first fruit of my philosophical explorations - if anyone out there wishes to add any constructively critical comments to my blog, I would very much appreciate your own views and knowledge on this chaotically contentious issue - many thanks!
The following brand new blog is the first fruit of my philosophical explorations - if anyone out there wishes to add any constructively critical comments to my blog, I would very much appreciate your own views and knowledge on this chaotically contentious issue - many thanks!
My brand new blog can be found here:
I will be looking forward to hearing some of your own much valued opinions!
Two comments which I've already passed on to Michael Levy directly:
ReplyDelete1) "Verdi's A", A = 432Hz, is a Pythagorean major sixth above the referent for modern "scientific tuning", C = 256Hz. Hence the connection, otherwise undocumented so far as I've yet learned, in the eyes of the Schiller Institute between the two pitches.
2) Making certain assumptions about the length of the trumpets of Numbers 10 (an Egyptian royal cubit of 525mm) and their default playing conditions (cool dry air at sea level, i.e., 20 degrees Celsius at a pressure of 1 bar), 432 Hz is a diatonic perfect fifth below the pitch of the trumpets (E = 648Hz). This result carries to three significant digits, but bear in mind the pitch of a trumpet varies with air temperature, humidity and pressure (and thus also with altitude).
How much either factoid has to do with New Age speculation, I have no idea.
Thanks, John. Unfortunately, when people have a desired result already in mind, instead of relying on the scientific method, they pretty much read whatever they want into this information.
ReplyDelete