future of the acoustic piano

[Ron Nossaman]

>Hi Ron,
>
>I believe that due to chaos theory it has been proved that weather can
>*not* be predicted no matter how many data points are gathered and no
>matter how many terraflops are used for computing power. It would be nice
>to know if soundboards and sound production by them fall inside or outside
>the catagory.

Ah, but you could if you knew the position and condition of EVERY particle
in the system, as well as continually updated information regarding outside
influences like solar radiation, cosmic dust and the like. Weather station
data points probably account for something like 10^-9999999  sand grain's
worth of information from the entire system's Sahara. That coarse a
sampling is only a little better than a random guess. We're way ahead of
that on soundboards because we get to chose and modify some of the
controlling factors. If we could control the surface temperature of the
continents and oceans, we could have some better idea of next week's
weather too because trends could be "corrected" and steered somewhat. 


>Your analogy brings the idea of quantum (spelling anyone) into the
>arena--where sometimes looking at something changes its state. I.E. you can
>know the location of a particle exactly but not its energy level, *OR* you
>can know its energy level but not its location.

Good point, and that's why we have to work with relatively coarse models.
Our instrumentation isn't of fine enough resolution to tell us anything
potentially useful without corrupting the measured item. It's hard to
determine the location of an egg in space by bouncing bowling balls off it.

Incidentally, the simulated piano sound installation in that Betsy Ross
worked about like a long range weather forecast phoned in from a cave.

Quite without certainty, physicist Heisenberg
Asked for a ruling - most times, would demure
Such ambiguity clouded his thinking, that
Now when he thinks he's confused... he's not sure


Ron N