Happy Birthday Beethoven

Today is Beethoven's birthday. I don't have anything more to say about that beyond the fact that it started my current train of thought.

Beethoven was a genius expanding small ideas into grand statements. For example: the 7th symphony focuses on rhythm (dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth), the Hammerklavier Sonata is obsessed with the third, and the 9th symphony begins with a single note. Many of the great composers were able do develop their themes in an extended working out of their implications (Charles Rosen) -- a deconstruction. The techniques of counterpoint -- none of which, by themselves, is particularly special  -- provide the tools (slowing the melody, speeding it up, flipping it upside down etc) by which an idea is taken apart and put back together.

In a Beethoven symphony, it is said that every note leads inexorably to the next note. Each small step seems logical and prosaic. Seen on a larger scale the works are undeniable genius. Their intelligibility and rigorous logic isn't a flaw but the key means by which these pieces communicate from Beethoven's heart to ours.

These days, people say you're a scientist if you can do math in your head and memorize facts. This is certainly helpful, such as learning counterpoint and harmony is helpful to composing, but it misses the point of science. These days we have software that can do math, anything you learn in school -- up to and including in college -- can be solved on a computer. Likewise, you don't need to memorize the elements -- they're listed in a handy table so chemists can don't have to memorize them.

The heart of physics is the development of ideas, working from simple to complex. For example, classical mechanics -- responsible for placing a man on the moon -- can be worked our from Newton's Three Laws. To be certain, you need math and logic, but the each step is logical and evident as you retrace the steps worn by previous generations of scientists. Like Beethoven, physicists have had great success by working out the implications derived from seemingly simple statements.