ABSTRACT
Chapter 22 explored the unlikely connection between musical rhythms and crystallography. is chapter considers another surprising connection, this time between musical rhythm and radio astronomy. When I say “surprising,” I mean surprising at rst thought. Once it is realized that two areas are concerned with distances between pairs of elements, there is bound to be some connection. Radio astronomers are interested in receiving signals from outer space to discover new planets in other solar systems, perhaps stumble on alien intelligent life, as well as answer a variety of questions related to the structure of matter in the universe. For this purpose, they construct colossal and expensive radio telescopes or dish antennas: larger dishes provide better signals. However, very large dishes become prohibitively expensive. One approach to deal with this problem is to use several small dishes instead of one large one, and to arrange them some distance apart, thus ensuring that the waves of the signals arriving at each dish are out of phase with each other, resulting in interference. is interference causes the amplitude of the resultant wave obtained by superimposing the two waves to exhibit greater variation. For example, Figure 24.1 shows a two-element radio telescope at a unit distance apart. By analyzing this interference between the signals received in the two receivers, astronomers can improve signal detection.
