A team of researchers from MIT has used computers and mathematical algorithms to convert the frequencies of a vibrating spider web into music. The researchers presented their results on April 12, 2021 at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Markus Buehler from MIT is the principal investigator on the project. He said in a statement:
The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings. They don’t see very well, so they feel their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies.
Such vibrations occur, for example, when the spider stretches a silk strand during construction, or when the wind or a trapped fly moves the web. Spiders are sensitive to disturbances, which they detect with their legs.
Long-time interested in music, Buehler wondered if he could extract rhythms and melodies from the vibrating strands of spider webs. To that end, the team scanned a natural spider web with a laser to capture 2D cross-sections, then used computer algorithms to reconstruct the web’s 3D network. The team assigned different sound frequencies to strands of the web and created ‘notes’ that they combined in patterns based on the 3D structure of the web to generate melodies. The researchers then created a harp-like instrument to play the spider web music. Buehler told Reuters:
Spiders are a completely different animal. What they see or feel is not really audible or visible to the human eye or ear. And so by transposing it, we begin to experience that.
Cross-sectional images (shown in different colors) of a spider web were combined into this 3D image and translated into music. Image via Isabelle Su and Markus Buehler / SciTechDaily.
The team is also interested in learning how to communicate with spiders in their own language. They recorded web vibrations produced when spiders performed various activities, such as building a web, communicating with other spiders, or sending courtship signals. Although the frequencies sounded the same as the human ear, a machine learning algorithm correctly classified the sounds in the different activities. Buehler said:
Now we are trying to generate synthetic signals to actually speak the spider’s language. If we expose them to certain rhythm or vibration patterns, can we influence what they do, and can we start communicating with them? Those are really exciting ideas.
In short, researchers have translated the complex structure of a spider’s web into music. Listen.
Via ScienceDaily
Via Reuters
