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Rhyme and reason – why a university professor uses poetry to teach math

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Title of course:

The Ways Math and Poetry Can Open Your Eyes to the World

What prompted the idea for the course?

I have always enjoyed writing poetry. As a high school mathematics teacher, I recall telling my students that everything is and can be connected to math, even creative writing. Then, as a graduate student, I read about people using “I am” poem templates for young people to express who they are through a series of “I am” statements, and I thought to myself, where is the “I am” math poem template? So I created one.

I then started working on what I call problem-posing poetry, which are poems connected to a social issue and that can be used as alternatives to traditional math word problems. Working with Yousef Kara, who is a poet studying to become a teacher, we learned to see poetry as a way to understand the real world before connecting to math learning. We also began to use poetry to reflect on prior math learning. After using math poetry with high schoolers and teachers, it became apparent it should be a part of my math methods courses for future teachers.

What does the course explore?

The course explores the idea of poetry as a rich experience before, during and after math learning connected to real-world issues.

The “I am” math poem template is an example of poetry before math. The prompts used in the template allow the teacher to incorporate students’ interests when learning math in the future. For example, the last prompt shows what students are passionate about, and teachers should use that interest in their teaching of math.

Problem-posing poems like “Number Sense,” written by Ricardo Martinez, show how a poem can use actual data to become a math problem for students to solve. Poetry after math learning can best be captured by Yousef’s poem “The Wrong Bathroom, Continuously,” a reflection on trans identity related to functions that model relationships between two quantities.

This poem demonstrates concepts of math through exploring different types of continuous functions in calculus. Functions that oscillate, approach opposite infinities and disjointed functions, all of which make it impossible to find the exact value of a limit. Hence the line, “You cannot pin me down to a single point.”

Here is an excerpt from the poem:

I am a continuous function.

I oscillate My gender, in constant motion, And I don’t care if I am unrecognizable to you

I approach both infinities From the left and the right Expanding with each self discovery. Expanding far beyond your comprehension

I am disjointed Deconstructed and decolonized. I teleport between and beyond genders You cannot pin me down to a single point

It shows how learning more about math expands our vocabulary and understanding of what we experience.

Why is this course relevant now?

The beauty of using poetry is that it makes math more exciting and allows it to connect to any topic or idea. Math poetry becomes even more critical today as people need an outlet to communicate their truths about societal injustices like trans people’s rights, bans on Black history or Islamophobia. Math and poetry create new metaphors that allow people to better understand societal issues along with themselves and others.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

A key takeaway from the course is that math is a vital part of each person, and poetry can help people see that math is all around us.

What will the course prepare students to do?

By exploring math and poetry, I believe they, as aspiring teachers, will begin to question how they were taught – for example, the use of timed tests and learning with no real-world connections. A lot of people say they don’t like math, when, in truth, they have never knowingly experienced math connected to their culture, values, desires and dreams. Math and poetry work to reclaim how we all see, experience and live with math every day.

^^^

Ricardo Martinez, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education, Penn State

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons License

Feature Image by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels

Photo by James Wheeler via Pexels

Heritage algorithms combine the rigors of science with the infinite possibilities of art and design

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The model of democracy in the 1920s is sometimes called “the melting pot” – the dissolution of different cultures into an American soup. An update for the 2020s might be “open source,” where cultural mixing, sharing and collaborating can build bridges between people rather than create divides.

Our research on heritage algorithms aims to build such a bridge. We develop digital tools to teach students about the complex mathematical sequences and patterns present in different cultures’ artistic, architectural and design practices.

By combining computational thinking and cultural creative practices, our work provides an entry point for students who are disproportionately left out of STEM careers, whether by race, class or gender. Even those who feel at home with equations and abstraction can benefit from narrowing the gap between the arts and sciences.

What are heritage algorithms?

Traditional STEM curricula often present science as a ladder you climb. For example, you might be told that math starts with counting, then goes to algebra, then calculus and so on.

But our research has found that the global history of science is more like a bush: Each culture has its own branching set of discoveries. Some of these discoveries offer a perspective that’s different from the theorem-proof approach for math or hypothesis-experiment approach for biology. Understanding the rules and techniques that create cultural patterns from the maker’s point of view can help bridge the gap between knowledge branches. We refer to these hybrids of computation and culture as heritage algorithms, and there are examples everywhere.

Flying over an African village, you can see the recursive geometry of African fractals in their architecture: circles of circles, rectangles within rectangles, and other “self-similar” structures. These fractal patterns also appear in their textiles, carvings, paintings, ironwork and more.

Other kinds of algorithms underlie the repeating sequences of bent wood arcs that make up Native American wigwams, canoes and cradles. Even henna tattoos demonstrate the interactions among computation, nature and culture.

These heritage algorithms challenge the myth of “primitive cultures” – the idea that early Africans had no math past counting on fingers or that Native American agriculture lacked sophistication.

The computational thinking that is embedded in Indigenous artifacts and other creative practices, such as weaving, beadwork and quilting, is not merely decorative. It also reflects different ways of thinking about the world. Our interviews with artisans revealed how they visualize spiritual concepts in formal techniques and numerical sequences.

Bringing heritage algorithms to the classroom

Heritage algorithms give students a way to blend the abstract rigors of math, the grounded legacies of culture and the infinite possibilities of art. To bring these algorithms to the classroom, we have created interactive computer programs and simulations that we call culturally situated design tools, or CSDTs.

Each CSDT was created in collaboration with Indigenous elders, street artists, traditional crafters and others. With the creators’ permission, we transfer their knowledge of pattern creation into digital tools that students enjoy using and teachers enjoy implementing in their lesson plans.

It’s important to craft each CSDT to reflect the way those artisans think about the cultural practice. For instance, the slope of the line y=x, mathematically calculated as “rise over run,” is 1 – for every unit you move up the line, you move a unit to the right. This line forms a 45-degree angle with the x-axis. But when Navajo weavers use this “up one, over one” pattern, the slope is closer to a 30-degree angle. This is because they weave yarn horizontally through vertical cords that are thicker than the yarn. So we made sure to preserve this feature in the weaving simulation we built.

A crucial aspect of CSDTs is that students may use them to follow their interests. This freedom and independence lets students encounter new cultures, delve deeper into their own identity or mix designs from different cultures to create something completely new.

We have seen Black students choose an Appalachian quilting simulation, Native American students choose cornrow simulations and white students create beadwork simulations. Students’ creative designs often mix many cultures together – cornrows become “powwow braids,” and African fractal simulations turn into plants, lungs and river deltas.

Heritage algorithms and CSDTs provide a powerful starting place for students to improve their computing skills and confidence. These tools even provide a foundation for a variety of careers, from architecture to environmental engineering.

When computation and culture collide

The reach of heritage algorithms has recently extended beyond learning environments to contemporary art spaces. Artists are generating a bold new creative style using “ethnocomputing” – an understanding of computer science from a cultural perspective.

You can see fresh interpretations of heritage algorithms in the African fractals embedded in the work of visual artist Tendai Mupita, the cornrow simulations integrated in the work of Rashaad Newsome, the blending of the African diaspora and technology by Nettrice Gaskins and the creative duo Tosin Oshinowo and Chrissy Amuah.

An exhibition on display in New York City, the U.K. and Los Angeles explores the textile techniques of artists inspired by the African American quilting tradition of Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

Our research on heritage algorithms is partially driven by a philosophical desire to reframe STEM as a source of radical joy for every ethnicity and identity. Inspired by the radical feminist phrase “sex-positive feminism,” we sometimes call our perspective “race-positive design” – thinking of race not in purely negative terms of oppression but instead as a rich source of creativity, liberation and a free-thinking mindset for curiosity and scientific inquiry.

This philosophical stance also has a practical side: statistically significant improvement in STEM scores for underrepresented students. Many teachers have recognized the potential of heritage algorithms for getting students invested in STEM. One teacher using the graffiti tool told us this was the first time students asked if they could stay in her math class after school. Another said she would never teach negative numbers again without the bead loom CSDT.

Heritage algorithms, both in the classroom and beyond, open up a two-way bridge between humanistic and technical knowledge. They offer a space where everyone – teacher and student, young and old, geek and artist – can learn, share and collaborate.

^^^

Audrey G. Bennett, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan and Ron Eglash, Professor of Information, University of Michigan.

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons Liscense

Feature Image by James Wheeler via Pexels

Photo by Geri Tech via Pexels

The truth behind a successful social media platform

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Nowadays, just about anyone can launch their own social media platform to the public— but its simplicity doesn’t come without its tribulations. More than half the world uses social media on a daily basis, averaging 2 hours daily on platforms like FaceBook and Instagram. Each year, sites are seeing a 3% increase in user signups, indicating that social media is solidifying its presence in society on a global scale. While these aspects may sound promising to the next social media entrepreneur, it reveals the competitive nature behind the ever-growing technology industry. 

Currently, there are 7 platforms that dominate the social media market, with 4 being owned by META corporation. It is estimated that 4.88 billion identities are registered online as of July 2023, making social media the largest international digital connection. Most users are active on 6 or 7 platforms, meaning that a registered account doesn’t guarantee usage. Unlike other forms of media, social media relies on its users to generate content and spur activity, and inactivity guarantees the death of the platform. 

META’s recent social media creation, Threads, shows how easy it is for a platform to die out despite its large user base. In an attempt to rival Twitter, META’s biggest competitor, Zuckerberg and team decided to create a platform eerily similar, except users must register using their Instagram credentials and identity, binding the two platforms to each other. At first, Threads saw great success with 27.8 million downloads during the first week in the USA alone. In less than a week, Threads managed to gain half as many users as Twitter, a platform created back in 2006. While these reports seemed promising for the future of Threads, 70% of accounts were reported as inactive by its third week of existence. 

Photo by Julio Lopez via Pexels
Photo by Julio Lopez via Pexels

While there are various factors contributing to Threads’ decline, perhaps the most notable aspect was Threads dependence on its mother platform, Instagram. Forcing users to link their Instagram credentials to their Threads profile guarantees a lack of curated online identity, which often will lose users’ excitement as it provides nothing new. Content generation, curation, and maintenance is too similar to Instagram, leading to users disengaging. Why maintain another social media profile when Instagram already exists? 

This phenomena is certainly not new to the world of social media, yet it’s a cautionary tale about the trials and tribulations of a new social media platform. Even for well established companies like META, a new platform’s success is not guaranteed. It can be difficult to identify how the market will respond to a new social media platform as both technology and people’s desires seem to be changing at rapid rates. Therefore, one must go beyond the technical components in order to ensure their social media platform’s success, and maintain activity. 

One of the newest popular social media platforms, BeReal, has achieved enormous success due to its ability to target an aspect of the market missing on other platforms. Built upon “authentic use” , BeReal allows users to post one photo a day highlighting their lifestyle “in real time”. It is now the fastest growing social media app for Gen. Z users worldwide, with a 313% surge of signups this past year. The creators targeted those who felt that social media was “inauthentic”, which seems to be quite the lucrative market. In this instance, identifying a gap within the social media market for users has paid off greatly for BeReal. From its creation in 2020 to now, it seems BeReal is here to stay for many avid social media users. 

While social media’s fruitful rewards seem promising to a young entrepreneur, it takes a lot more than one may think to be successful. Take it from companies like META, a projected profit on paper is not always reality for the social media market. It takes great creativity, skill, and perhaps a bit of luck to crack into the ever-expanding world of social media. 

^^^

Katie Williams, Rome Design Agency

Feature Image by Geri Tech via Pexels

Photo by Vlada Karpovich

Why does your hair curl in the summer? A chemist explains the science behind hair structure

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If you have curly hair, you know that every day is a new adventure. What will my hair do today? Why does it curl better on some days than others? And even those without naturally curly hair might notice their hair curling – or, let’s be honest, frizzing – a bit on humid summer days.

As a person with curly hair, I’m always looking for the best way to care for and understand my hair. As a chemist, I’m interested in the science behind how my hair behaves at the molecular level. There are different hair types, from straight to curly, and they behave differently depending on their structure. But what hairs are made up of at the molecular level is the same.

Hair structure

Hair begins growing under the skin’s surface, but it’s what happens after it pokes through the skin that determines whether you have a good hair day or a bad one.

Each hair can have three layers – the medulla, the cortex and the cuticle. You can think of each hair like a tiny tree trunk.

The innermost, or core layer, is the medulla. This layer holds moisture, much like the pith in the center of a tree trunk. This layer is also very fragile, but only thick or coarse hairs contain this part – so those with thin or blond hair typically don’t have the medulla layer in their hairs.

Next is the cortex, which makes up most of a hair and is analogous to the wood of a tree. The cortex is made up of spring-shaped protein molecules that lie in parallel rows in a cylindrical bundle. The exact shape of that bundle is determined by the hair follicle, which is a pore on the skin from where the hair grows.

How the hair grows out of the follicle influences the distribution of its proteins. So a straight follicle produces straight hair and a curved follicle produces curly hair. The less evenly distributed the squiggly proteins are, the curlier the hair. Your genetic code also plays a role in the shape of the cortex and, therefore, the shape and thickness of your hair.

Lastly, the outermost layer of a hair is called the cuticle. The cuticle is like the bark of a tree – and it even looks like bark under a microscope.

It’s the cuticle’s job to protect the cortex, but the cuticle is very easily damaged. Imagine lifting or removing the bark from a tree. Doing so would leave the wood inside susceptible to moisture loss, exposure to the environment and damage.

The same is true for each hair. When the cuticle is damaged from brushing, chemicals, wind or heat, the proteins of the cortex have a much more difficult time lying smoothly together. This means they can lose moisture, gain moisture, fray like a rope – this causes split ends – and even break. All these factors can influence how your hair looks at any given moment.

Hair in the summer

So what does all of this have to do with humidity? Well, hair proteins contain many permanent chemical bonds. Only chemical treatments like perms or straightening can change these bonds. But there’s another natural phenomenon that keeps the protein molecules in the cortex in line – something called hydrogen bonding.

The long, stringy protein molecules in the cortex contain tiny positive and negative charges throughout their structure. Because opposite charges attract each other, entire rows of proteins can be attracted to each other like tiny, weak magnets.

Heating or wetting your hair breaks the magnetlike attraction between these rows of proteins. So, heat and water can rearrange the proteins in your hair by breaking the hydrogen bonds that keep their structure together.

Water is one of the best molecules at hydrogen bonding. So when a molecule of water has the opportunity to hydrogen bond with something, it will.

In your hair, water can form hydrogen bonds between the rows of proteins in your hair’s cortex. It is the extent to which this happens that determines your hair’s fate.

When just a little water enters the hair, like it might in lower humidity conditions or when the cuticle is healthy and able to keep too much water out of the cortex, your hair may curl. When humidity is high, or the cuticle is damaged, more water enters the hair. Too much water can swell and crack the cuticle, making hair look frizzy.

Many people consider high humidity to be the problem behind frizzy hair, but styling your hair under high humidity and then entering a less humid environment can also be an issue. Water molecules leaving the hair’s cortex can also lead to a change in hair behavior.

Treating summer hair

A damaged cuticle layer leaves the cortex more susceptible to water molecules creeping in or out and wreaking havoc on your hair. Anytime water molecules travel in or out, your hair’s structure suffers and your hairstyle may be ruined. When the cuticle is healthy, it can protect the cortex, making your hair less susceptible to changes in the weather or environment. The bottom line is that a healthy hair cuticle helps keep proper moisture in the cortex.

Heat from styling tools is the most common culprit behind damaged cuticles, but chemical treatments, brushing, sun and wind can also cause damage. Avoiding these activities can help, but some things, such as exposure to the sun, can’t be avoided.

You can also take care of your scalp – a clean, healthy scalp leads to healthy hair cuticles. Using moisturizing products on your hair can help maintain cuticle health as well. Oils and moisturizing treatments can even restore damaged cuticles. The good news is that by understanding your hair and treating it well, you can help prevent the undesired effects of humidity.

^^^

Tara S. Carpenter, Principle Lecturer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons License

Feature Image by Vlada Karpovich via Pexels

Photo by CottonBro Studio

The bubbly chemistry behind carbonated beverages

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Many people love the refreshing effervescence of a soda, champagne, beer or sparkling water. When you take a sip, the gas bubbles in the beverage burst, and the released gas tickles your nose. But have you ever wondered how carbonation actually works?

I’m a professor who teaches classes in chemistry and fermentation and a carbonated beverage enthusiast and home brewer myself. While the basic process of carbonation is relatively simple, a variety of factors – from temperature to surface tension – can affect the taste and quality of beverages.

Dissolving carbon dioxide

Carbonation involves dissolving the colorless and odorless carbon dioxide – CO₂ – gas into a liquid. When carbon dioxide is added to a sealed bottle or can containing water, the pressure in the bottle or can increases, and the carbon dioxide dissolves into the liquid.

The CO₂ above the liquid and the CO₂ dissolved in the liquid reach chemical equilibrium. Chemical equilibrium essentially means the rate that CO₂ dissolves into the liquid is equal to the rate that CO₂ is released from the liquid. It’s based on the amounts of CO₂ both in the air and in the liquid.

Some of the dissolved CO₂ reacts with the water to form carbonic acid, which has a chemical formula of H₂CO₃. So once some of the dissolved CO₂ converts to H₂CO₃, more CO₂ from the air above can dissolve into the liquid and reestablish chemical equilibrium.

When you open a bottle or can, the pressure above the carbonated liquid drops to match the pressure outside of the bottle or can. The pressure release results in a hissing sound, and you see bubbles rising in the liquid as the H₂CO₃ converts back to CO₂ and that gas escapes to the surface. The carbonic acid in the beverage is what makes it taste a little sour.

A colder drink is a bubblier one

Another important factor influencing carbonation is temperature. Most gases, including carbon dioxide, do not dissolve well in liquids as the temperature of the liquid rises. That’s why carbonated drinks go flat if you leave them out at room temperature.

Conversely, if you place your favorite carbonated beverage in the refrigerator and allow it to get cold, more dissolved carbon dioxide will stay in the beverage while it’s still sealed. When you open the chilled bottle or can, the liquid is more bubbly because there was more dissolved carbon dioxide in the cold beverage.

Surface tension and fizziness

One final important factor for carbonation is the surface tension of the liquid. A liquid’s surface tension is determined by how strongly the liquid’s molecules interact with each other. For most beverages, those molecules are water molecules, but diet soft drinks have artificial sweeteners dissolved in them. These sweeteners can weaken the interactions between the water molecules, creating a lower surface tension. A lower surface tension means the carbon dioxide bubbles form faster and last longer.

This is why it takes slightly longer to be served a Diet Coke on ice, a problem you might notice on a plane. The lower surface tension from the artificial sweetener means there’s more fizz, and for longer, compared with other soft drinks. The flight attendants then have to wait for the bubbles in the cup to break before they can fill the cup with more Diet Coke.

Surface tension is also why Diet Coke works so well in the famous Mentos experiment, during which you drop Mentos candies into 2-liter Diet Coke bottles. The candy helps to weaken the interactions between the water molecules and the CO₂ molecules, lowering the surface tension and allowing for an easier release of CO₂ molecules. A bubbling “geyser” of Diet Coke rises fast above the 2-liter bottle as the CO₂ molecules quickly form on the candy’s surfaces and force the Diet Coke out of the bottle.

Getting the bubbles into a beverage

In an effort to make water similar to that from mineral springs, the carbonation process was invented by Joseph Priestley in England in the 1760s and commercialized by Jacob Schweppe – recognize the name? – in Switzerland in the 1780s. Priestley reacted chalk with sulfuric acid, producing CO₂, and he hung a water-filled container over the reaction to infuse the water with CO₂.

Today, most commercial beers, soft drinks, seltzers and sparkling waters are created by “forced” carbonation. This is when manufacturers directly inject carbon dioxide into the beverage under high carbon dioxide pressures.

A second common way to introduce carbon dioxide into a liquid is by fermentation. Champagne manufacturers and some small home beer brewers follow this method by sealing a sugar source and live yeast into their bottles. The yeast produce alcohol and carbon dioxide, and this carbon dioxide increases the pressure in the bottle, resulting in carbonated champagne and beer. But this process is not as controlled and can result in exploding bottles.

Larger brewers often capture CO₂ produced during a fermentation process and pump that gas into the tanks that contain beer to carbonate the beer. This is normally a controlled process that allows for known amounts of carbon dioxide to be introduced into the beverages for outstanding consistency.

Carbonation is a marriage between physics and chemistry – one that transforms ordinary liquids into effervescent treats. The next time you drink a carbonated beverage, take a moment to appreciate the science behind those dancing bubbles.

^^^

Michael W. Crowder, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons license

Feature Image by CottonBro Studio via Pexels

Image by Mikhail Nilov

3 ways AI is transforming music

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Each fall, I begin my course on the intersection of music and artificial intelligence by asking my students if they’re concerned about AI’s role in composing or producing music.

So far, the question has always elicited a resounding “yes.”

Their fears can be summed up in a sentence: AI will create a world where music is plentiful, but musicians get cast aside.

In the upcoming semester, I’m anticipating a discussion about Paul McCartney, who in June 2023 announced that he and a team of audio engineers had used machine learning to uncover a “lost” vocal track of John Lennon by separating the instruments from a demo recording.

But resurrecting the voices of long-dead artists is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s possible – and what’s already being done.

In an interview, McCartney admitted that AI represents a “scary” but “exciting” future for music. To me, his mix of consternation and exhilaration is spot on.

Here are three ways AI is changing the way music gets made – each of which could threaten human musicians in various ways:

1. Song composition

Many programs can already generate music with a simple prompt from the user, such as “Electronic Dance with a Warehouse Groove.”

Fully generative apps train AI models on extensive databases of existing music. This enables them to learn musical structures, harmonies, melodies, rhythms, dynamics, timbres and form, and generate new content that stylistically matches the material in the database.

There are many examples of these kinds of apps. But the most successful ones, like Boomy, allow nonmusicians to generate music and then post the AI-generated results on Spotify to earn money. Spotify recently removed many of these Boomy-generated tracks, claiming that this would protect human artists’ rights and royalties.

The two companies quickly came to an agreement that allowed Boomy to re-upload the tracks. But the algorithms powering these apps still have a troubling ability to infringe upon existing copyright, which might go unnoticed to most users. After all, basing new music on a data set of existing music is bound to cause noticeable similarities between the music in the data set and the generated content.

Furthermore, streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music are naturally incentivized to develop their own AI music-generation technology. Spotify, for instance, pays 70% of the revenue of each stream to the artist who created it. If the company could generate that music with its own algorithms, it could cut human artists out of the equation altogether.

Over time, this could mean more money for giant streaming services, less money for musicians – and a less human approach to making music.

2. Mixing and mastering

Machine-learning-enabled apps that help musicians balance all of the instruments and clean up the audio in a song – what’s known as mixing and mastering – are valuable tools for those who lack the experience, skill or resources to pull off professional-sounding tracks.

Over the past decade, AI’s integration into music production has revolutionized how music is mixed and mastered. AI-driven apps like Landr, Cryo Mix and iZotope’s Neutron can automatically analyze tracks, balance audio levels and remove noise.

These technologies streamline the production process, allowing musicians and producers to focus on the creative aspects of their work and leave some of the technical drudgery to AI.

While these apps undoubtedly take some work away from professional mixers and producers, they also allow professionals to quickly complete less lucrative jobs, such as mixing or mastering for a local band, and focus on high-paying commissions that require more finesse. These apps also allow musicians to produce more professional-sounding work without involving an audio engineer they can’t afford.

3. Instrumental and vocal reproduction

Using “tone transfer” algorithms via apps like Mawf, musicians can transform the sound of one instrument into another.

Thai musician and engineer Yaboi Hanoi’s song “Enter Demons & Gods,” which won the third international AI Song Contest in 2022, was unique in that it was influenced not only by Thai mythology, but also by the sounds of native Thai musical instruments, which have a non-Western system of intonation. One of the most technically exciting aspects of Yaboi Hanoi’s entry was the reproduction of a traditional Thai woodwind instrument – the pi nai – which was resynthesized to perform the track.

A variant of this technology lies at the core of the Vocaloid voice synthesis software, which allows users to produce convincingly human vocal tracks with swappable voices.

Unsavory applications of this technique are popping up outside of the musical realm. For example, AI voice swapping has been used to scam people out of money.

But musicians and producers can already use it to realistically reproduce the sound of any instrument or voice imaginable. The downside, of course, is that this technology can rob instrumentalists of the opportunity to perform on a recorded track.

While I applaud Yaboi Hanoi’s victory, I have to wonder if it will encourage musicians to use AI to fake a cultural connection where none exists.

In 2021, Capitol Music Group made headlines by signing an “AI rapper” that had been given the avatar of a Black male cyborg, but which was really the work of Factory New non-Black software engineers. The backlash was swift, with the record label roundly excoriated for blatant cultural appropriation.

But AI musical cultural appropriation is easier to stumble into than you might think. With the extraordinary size of songs and samples that comprise the data sets used by apps like Boomy – see the open source “Million Song Dataset” for a sense of the scale – there’s a good chance that a user may unwittingly upload a newly generated track that pulls from a culture that isn’t their own, or cribs from an artist in a way that too closely mimics the original. Worse still, it won’t always be clear who is to blame for the offense, and current U.S. copyright laws are contradictory and woefully inadequate to the task of regulating these issues.

These are all topics that have come up in my own class, which has allowed me to at least inform my students of the dangers of unchecked AI and how to best avoid these pitfalls.

At the same time, at the end of each fall semester, I’ll again ask my students if they’re concerned about an AI takeover of music. At that point, and with a whole semester’s experience investigating these technologies, most of them say they’re excited to see how the technology will evolve and where the field will go.

Some dark possibilities do lie ahead for humanity and AI. Still, at least in the realm of musical AI, there is cause for some optimism – assuming the pitfalls are avoided.

^^^

Jason Palamara, Assistant Professor of Music Technology, Indiana University

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons License

Feature Image by Mikhail Nilov via Pexels 

Photo by Erik Mclean

Why homes often feel warmer than the thermostat suggests – and what to do about it

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Picture two homes on the same street: one constructed in the 1950s and the other in the 1990s. There are no trees or other shade. The air conditioning units are identical, recently replaced, and operating perfectly. Identical thermostats are set at 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27.8 Celsius).

When it’s 110 F (43.3 C) outside, the 1950s house will likely feel at least 10 F (5.6 C) warmer inside, even with the same air temperature.

Why?

The answer has to do with radiant heat. Radiant heat is what keeps you toasty warm at a campfire on a cold winter night. The fire doesn’t warm the air much; rather, like the Sun, most of the fire’s heat moves through invisible waves directly from the campfire to your body.

In the radiant heat of the Arizona sun, the surface temperature of the uninsulated post-and-beam ceilings in my house, one of 41,000 built in Tucson during the post-World War II era, can reach over 100 F (37.8 C). The single-glazed steel windows register 122 F (50 C), and the uninsulated concrete block walls aren’t much cooler.

Inside my house on triple-digit days, it can feel like I’m standing near a campfire, even with the air conditioner roaring to maintain 75 F (23.9 C). And when the system breaks – as it did during the long-running 2023 heat wave, when Phoenix hit 110 F (43.3 C) every day for weeks – temperatures rise dangerously fast. Without the AC, the hot surfaces plus the swirl of air from the ceiling fan makes the house feel like an air fryer.

Air temperature: An incomplete indicator of comfort

While people are used to thinking about how clothing, air movement, temperature and humidity affect comfort, two lesser-known measures help explain how they experience comfort indoors:

  1. Mean radiant temperature. This is the average temperature of all the surfaces that surround us: ceiling, windows, walls, floor. For radiant heat to move between an object and the human body, it needs an uninterrupted line of sight, so ceilings and unobstructed windows have an outsized influence on the radiant temperature experienced in a specific place in a house.
  2. Operative temperature. This can be approximated by averaging the mean radiant temperature and the average air temperature in a room. Other calculations of operative temperature take into account effects of air movement, humidity and additional variables. Roughly half of how you experience comfort is determined by the radiant environment.

Unfortunately, as the building scientist Robert Bean (no relation) says, “an entire industry of manufacturers, suppliers, builders and tradespeople incorrectly equate thermal comfort with air temperatures.” The result is that most people are completely oblivious to what actually makes a space feel comfortable — or uncomfortably hot.

On a hot, sunny day, good insulation and double-pane windows slow heat transfer enough for air conditioning to keep the mean radiant temperature inside the building within a few degrees of the air temperature.

However, in an under-insulated building, such as my house, or in some older public housing projects in Phoenix, the high mean radiant temperature can push the operative temperature over 90 F (32.2 C) – even with the thermostat set to 75 F (23.9 C). When the surface temperature exceeds the temperature of our skin, heat will begin to radiate from the hot surface into the body, making heat stroke more likely.

While the exact threshold where overheating becomes dangerous is debated, most people would agree that 90 F (32.2 C) is far too warm for comfort.

Hot surfaces are why smaller buildings, such as mobile homes, tiny homes, shipping containers and garages turned into apartments, often feel uncomfortable regardless of the thermostat setting. Smaller structures expose occupants to three, four or even six surfaces with the exterior exposed to the sun and hot outside air. More warm surfaces, more discomfort.

Cooler surfaces, more comfort

If you live in an under-insulated building and don’t mind using more electricity, you can set the thermostat lower. But if the mean radiant temperature is high, a 2 F (1.1 C) drop in air temperature will feel like only 1 F (0.6 C) — and those hot surfaces will still make you feel uncomfortable.

Adding insulation to your roof and replacing single-pane windows with double-pane units with low-emissivity (low-E) glass can help reduce the mean radiant temperature and your energy bills. They’re expensive improvements, but new federal tax credits and forthcoming rebates, to be administered by individual states, can help.

Trees, awnings and exterior shades can also reduce mean radiant temperatures by blocking direct sunlight. However, glass is a lousy insulator, so in very hot climates, single-pane windows completely protected from the sun can still become uncomfortably warm.

Adding a curtain inside — and keeping it closed — can help decrease mean radiant temperature because the curtain will be closer to the air temperature than the glass.

What about renters in old buildings?

Renters in older, under-insulated buildings are often less able to afford large energy bills, and landlords may be unable or unwilling to make expensive improvements. Making matters worse, older air conditioning systems use two to three times as much energy as newer units to deliver the same amount of cooling.

Since creating a comfortable operative temperature requires setting the thermostat lower, an HVAC system in an under-insulated building must work longer and harder, using more energy and further raising the cost. And the costs of discomfort are not only financial: Hot buildings also have adverse impacts on health and productivity.

Millions of Americans now live in places where cooling is the only thing preventing a mass casualty event. In Phoenix, city code requires rental units cooled by air conditioning to maintain a temperature of no more than 82 F (27.8 C), measured 3 feet above the floor in the center of the room. Unfortunately, the code does not specify whether 82 F is the operative temperature or the air temperature.

That one word makes a world of difference.

In an older, under-insulated building similar to my house — or, in what might be the worst-case scenario, a sun-fried southwest unit of the top floor of an uninsulated concrete high-rise — a seemingly safe air temperature of 82 F could easily mask dangerous operative temperatures of 96 F (35.6 C) or higher.

The key to better design

As a professor of architecture and building science, I believe today’s byzantine building codes and rental rules could be greatly improved for comfort by regulating mean radiant temperature rather than air temperature. Vast sections of code could be jettisoned by requiring that interior surfaces, which are easy to measure with an inexpensive infrared thermometer, be kept within a comfort range above 60 F (15.6 C) and below 85 F (29.4 C).

For more comfortable buildings, architects and engineers can apply simple, established principles, such as natural ventilation, shading and the right insulation and windows for the climate. Keeping heat out in the first place means we don’t have to spend so much on energy for cooling. Research shows that these measures can also make us safer by keeping buildings cooler for longer in summer power outages.

The happy result: homes and other buildings that are not only comfortable, but also safer and more affordable to operate.

^^^

Jonathan Bean, Associate Professor of Architecture, Sustainable Built Environments and Marketing, University of Arizona

This article originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons License

Feature Image by Erik Mclean via Pexels

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