19 April 2004

prime sonnets

About a week ago, Boing Boing linked to a midi version of the Fibonacci sequence with the comment that it sounds a lot like Philip Glass. This is not the point in my blogging career where I confess to once spending a lot of time giggling for no obvious reason in the Valhalla while watching Koyanisqaatsi. But I digress.

Fibonacci was more than just a dry humourless mathematician. He belonged to the most brilliant court in Europe, that of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II the Stupor Mundi, and may have contributed his dry-as-dust mathematical knowledge to Giacomo da Lentini's invention of the sonnet.

The midi piece does sound a lot like Philip Glass.

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