Kolmogorov music
summary
Claim: understanding equals the length of the shortest program that generates a piece of music using Kolmogorov complexity. Tools: Clojure, macros, description-length and result-length counters. Surprises: a billion Gs compress into 13 chars for 65 Gs and a melody’s code is 275 vs 281 (~10%) shorter than its literal JSON. Built: an infinite Library-of-Babel string generator, a Champan-word lexicon player and a “copyright infringement” demo that skips to a Blurred Lines segment — the demos run live and the compression comparisons hold up.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction
- 8:08Box Air
- 9:03Example
- 12:28David Meredith
- 15:28Clapping Music
- 17:43Notes
- 18:03Geometric Translation
- 19:56The Library of Babel
- 26:28The champion word
- 27:38Lexicon song
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