Departments
Editorial
Hans Mikelson
Astronomy
I have always had an interest in astronomy. Some recent developments have really interested me. The first is the discovery of extra solar planets. Imagine a Jupiter sized planet orbiting a star at about the same distance as the Earth is from the Sun. Why is this so cool? We know that it is unlikely gas giants can support life forms. Gas giants tend to have lots near Earth sized moons. That would place several moons in a location which could likely support life. So life may develop on several of these moons. Eventually some intelligent species may evolve on one or more of the moons. They would have a cool time exploring the moons of their system.
The second idea I found cool was recent discussions of a huge ocean on Jupitor's moon Europa. Beneath a thick crust of frozen ice is believed to be an ocean of liquid water. There are creatures on Earth that do no rely on the Sun for sustainance but instead rely on flumes at the bottom of the ocean. A similar situation could be occuring on Europa. I can imagine that it would be possible that the oceans of Europa could be alive with huge sea creatures living near volcanic flumes beneath the surface. What would an expedition to Europa be like? Imagine landing a spacecraft on the huge ice sheets, taking out a big honking auger and setting a tip-up to catch some of those whopping alien fish!
A word of warning for those who have made it this far in my ramblings. I just figured out the sinc interpolation and have not had a chance to test it very thoroughly. I think it is correct but the code should be used with caution. Hopefully if I did make some mistakes someone will point them out to me so I can make corrections. Jens Groh contributed an excellent article on frequency shifting. For my beginners section I describe some of Csound noise generators.
Happy Csounding,
Hans Mikleson