Writing

What is fractal music? The term “fractal music” can mean different things to different people. For some, it simply refers to music that was generated by mapping a fractal image to pitches, durations, dynamics, and…

Fractals 6 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Bach and Cantor: Fractal Structure in the Cello Suite No. 3

“It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.” — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Johann Sebastian Bach is widely acknowledged for his exceptional skill in combining aesthetic sensibilities with mathematically derived musical…

Bach & Fractals 8 min read

Harlan Brothers in The Generator

A Solution to the Problem of Deepfakes

A patent from 1998 offers a solution to the expanding epidemic of disinformation and outright fakery. — It’s a maxim from a bygone era — “Seeing is believing.” From government propaganda to unconfirmed war footage, from fake social media accounts to fake celebrity porn, the ability of artificial intelligence to generate credible-looking images, video, and text has fundamentally undermined our political discourse and the public’s faith in…

AI Deepfakes 5 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Fun, Fun, Fun with the Number One

How to get from e to 1

Known as the multiplicative identity and star of Benford’s Law, the number “1” holds a unique place in number theory. Sometimes referred to as unity, 1 is the basis for the unit measure and is not generally thought of as being composed of smaller elements. There are certainly well-known series…

Number Theory 4 min read

Harlan Brothers

“A Ph.D. is Highly Overrated”

…or so I’m told.

Make no mistake, I would love to have a Ph.D. The discipline it requires and the depth of knowledge it affords, for me, makes it a worthy goal. Years ago, when it might have been practical to pursue an advanced degree in mathematics, I had spoken with several of my…

Human Parts 4 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Fractal Structure in John Coltrane’s Countdown

“All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.” — John Coltrane (1926–1967)

John Coltrane’s album Giant Steps, first recorded in 1959, stands out as one of the seminal recordings in jazz history. While it is best known for its title track “Giant Steps”, the third track, “Countdown,” is a similarly virtuosic performance over a challenging chord progression at a blistering pace...

Fractals 7 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

The Nature of Fractal Music: Part II (Music & Space)

In Part I of this series, we discussed how we can look at music as a fractal phenomenon that unfolds in time. Here, we’ll look at fractal analysis related to characteristics of music as generally represented in a two-dimensional score or piano roll type of transcription...

Fractals 13 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

The Nature of Fractal Music: Part I (Music & Time)

Benoit Mandelbrot had a strong intuition that music could be viewed from a fractal perspective. However, without our eyes to guide us, how do we gain this understanding? In this series, we will discuss the mathematics of precisely what it means to say that a piece of music is fractal...

Fractals 9 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

The Beauty of Iterated Function Systems: A Primer

“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the perfection such as only the greatest art can show.” — Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)

Iterated function systems (IFS), were first popularized in the 1980s by Michael Barnsley, a pioneer in the field...

Fractals 8 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Mathematical Mind

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” — Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

In the Western world, since the time of Pythagoras there has been a sort of common wisdom that music and mathematics are intimately connected. This is certainly true in the physical sense...

Bach 4 min read

Harlan Brothers in Math Simplified

A Simple Introduction to Euler’s Number, e

“All the truths of mathematics are linked to each other, and all means of discovering them are equally admissible.” — Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833)

The number e, also known as Euler’s number or the base of the natural logarithm, pops up whenever we examine continuous rates of growth (or decay) that…

e 5 min read

Harlan Brothers in Towards Data Science

Giants Steps: The Fractal Structure of John Coltrane’s Iconic Solo

“When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.” — John Coltrane (1926–1967)

John Coltrane's improvisation on his composition Giant Steps, first recorded in 1959, stands out as one of the seminal recordings in…

Coltrane 7 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Pascal’s Triangle: A Secret Unveiled

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

For 1500 years, mathematicians from many cultures have explored the patterns and relationships found in what we now, in the West, refer to as Pascal’s triangle. Named posthumously for the French…

Pascal's Triangle 5 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

The Truth About Fractals

“In science, all important ideas need names and stories to fix them in the memory.” ― Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924–2010)

Major milestones in mathematics are generally measured in centuries. It is serendipitous then to come of age in the wake of a fundamentally new perspective in mathematical thought. In 1975…

Fractals 4 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Ramanujan, 𝑒, π and 𝜙

“An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.” — Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920)

The brilliant young Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, was a prodigy whose deep mathematical insights continue to thrill number theorists a century later. His first letter to English mathematician G. H. Hardy contained interesting…

Mathematics 2 min read

Harlan Brothers in Cantor’s Paradise

Bach Meets Mandelbrot

“I think we should send all of Bach; but of course we would be bragging, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance.” ―Lewis Thomas (1913–1993)

More than two centuries separate The Art of Fugue, written by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the primitive computer printout of the first graphical representation of what is arguably the most famous fractal...

Bach 6 min read