SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03938-x
Astronomy is inextricably associated with spectacular images and visualizations of the cosmos. But Wanda Diaz Merced says that by neglecting senses other than sight, astronomers are missing out on discoveries.
For 15 years, Diaz Merced, an astronomer at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Office for Astronomy Outreach in Mitaka, Japan, has pioneered a technique called sonification. The approach converts aspects of data, such as the brightness or frequency of electromagnetic radiation, into audible elements including pitch, volume and rhythm. It could help astronomers to avoid methodological biases that come with interpreting data only visually, argues Diaz Merced, who lost her sight in her twenties.
Last month, she co-organized the IAU's first symposium dedicated to diversity and inclusion. The event, in Mitaka from 12 to 15 November, showcased, among other topics, efforts aimed at presenting cosmic data in formats that are accessible through senses other than vision.
Diaz spoke to Nature about how bringing these efforts to mainstream science would boost accessibility — and discoveries.
How one astronomer hears the Universe, (DOI: doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03938-x)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday January 02 2020, @10:10PM (1 child)
I'm often surprised by the audible information from a dropped object. We can usually tell if it shattered or stayed intact. If it ended up on something soft or hard. If it skittered and bounced against the wall or not, and the general direction of it's path.
Bandwidth isn't everything.
Gravitational wave detectors are a lot like ears, with only a few spatially distinct channels of input data. I wonder if sonification has been tried with them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03 2020, @04:07AM
Sure, but again you could also show this visually with far more detail in a comparable amount of time.
Another thing not mentioned here is that you can also derive far more information than the human ear, even a trained one, is capable of discerning by doing things like applying a fourier transform to a waveform. And, once again, the representation is visual.