Bach on #PBS #NOVA #TheElegantUniverse

There's an untitled cello solo in Brian Greene's NOVA documentary on quantum physics string theory, "The Elegant Universe" the entire documentary:



and the pertinent scene in case the above link breaks:

I recognized the background music was Bach, but couldn't remember the title. At first I thought it was an homage to Douglas Hofstadter book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" (when is that going to be turned into a NOVA series I wonder? Protest!) and was the Goldberg Variations (J.S. Bach BWV 988), as from Robert Speer's MIT notes on Chapter 13:

"13. Aria with Diverse Variations - This chapter refers extensively to the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), an extensive set of variations on an aria. The 30th and final variation is a straightforward statement of the theme called the Quodlibet, after which the variations continue on with a 'post-ending ending', the Finale."

and from "archive.org"

"Aria with Diverse Variations. A Dialogue whose form is based on Bach's Goldberg Variations, and whose content is related to number- theoretical problems such as the Goldbach conjecture. This  hybrid has as its main purpose to show how number theory's subtlety stems from the fact that there are many diverse variations on the theme of searching through an infinite space. Some of them lead to infinite searches, some of them lead to finite searches, while some others hover in between."

 but no, this is not the same piece of music:

After a few more clicks, I found that the NOVA strings documentary music was Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007, so now I can sleep soundly at night:

Edgar Allan Poe 's Pit and the Pendulum for Engineers

A recent hp crossword included the clue for Edgar Allan Poe's "Pit and the Pendulum" 36D

This reminded me of an old physics problem from my undergraduate days. From  McGill, David J., and Wilton W. King. Engineering Mechanics, An Introduction to Dynamics. 2nd ed. Boston: PWS-Kent Pub., 1989. Print.

From Chapter 4: Kinetics of Rigid Body in Plane Motion/Differential Equations Governing Motion Problem 4.69

My solution:

Agrees with book's answer (yeah!):

Illustrated Audio book with captions, if you don't recognize literary reference:





From 1961 Vincent Price version "Pit and the Pendulum":

As we remember #VincentPrice on his birthday here's a great scene from THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM! http://t.co/OzzjSLu6Hs

— PoeForevermore (@PoeForevermore) May 27, 2015

From the above film clip, it doesn't look the assumptions for my calculations are correct because the pin certainly doesn't look frictionless.


In case you've never heard of the author, a Poe biography from  "Poe, Edgar Allan." Grolier Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Grolier Society, 1954. 380-381. Print.

Ahh that comforting, musty book smell... Love letters to libraries: Jacqueline Wilson http://t.co/YtvSWOsvzM

— Suzie Brzezinska (@Suze422) November 27, 2014

I'm really skeptical of the veracity of the above article that Poe's last words were "Lord, help my poor soul."

And in case you wondered what was the deep philosophical meaning of a swinging pendulum, MIT open course lecture on Douglas R Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" gives you the answer @29:53:

#ClassicArtsShowcase for Bach Goldberg Variations fans

Rosalyn Tureck plays Bach Goldberg Variations:

and the complete composition:




made cameo in book "Gödel, Escher, Bach"

And the book is topic of online MOOC that compares Bach theme to a computer algorithm: