What other music genres or artists are comparable to Math Rock?
With its atypical rhythm patterns and its challenging time signatures, the math rock genre definitely separates from most other genres. It’s hard to compare the sounds of math rocks bands to those of more mainstream artists. However, one scene that shares in math rock’s affinity for quirky time signatures and complex rhythmic structures is that of the jam bands. Headlined by bands such as Phish, Widespread Panic, and the String Cheese Incident, the jam band sound is driven by experimentation and the pushing of musical boundaries. Typically much less heavy or raw-sounding as math rock bands, jam bands are a great alternative to folks who are looking for a respite from the monotony of the popular music scene but who don’t quite like the hardcore sound of math rock.
How do fractals relate to some theories of the nature of the universe?
The self-similar nature of fractals, that at any level of the fractal there are infinitely more levels in either direction of magnification, mirrors some views about the nature of the universe. As scientists probe farther and farther into the depths of space and deeper and deeper into the microscopic realm, they continue to find more and more levels of organization inherent in the universe. From the findings of our most powerful telescopes down to the hypotheses of string theorists, we see an incredibly beautiful and repeating organizational structure. Strings are organized into elementary particles, elementary particles into subatomic particles, subatomic particles into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into physical matter, physical matter into planets and stars, planets and stars into solar systems, solar systems into galaxies, and so on. Many people speculate that if we had powerful enough microscopes and telescopes that we could see these repeating organization patterns continue into infinity. In this way fractals create an intriguing parallel to our universe.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
