Beautiful music makes better materials

 Part 7: Gapped text

 

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (41-46). There is one extra paragraph which ye do not need to use. Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.

 

Beautiful music makes better materials

The hidden structures of music are universal patterns of nature - and they can help us create new materials like artificial silk.

 

Our world consists of only about 100 different chemical elements. It is the arrangement of these elements, or building blocks, into molecules that gives rise to the rich set of materials around us - from the sugar molecules in the food we eat to the oxides in the Earth's crust.

41.- ______

The properties of a piece of matter, however, are defined not by these basic building blocks themselves but by the way they are arranged. For instance, spider silk is one of the most remarkable examples of nature's materials, created from a simple protein but spun into fibres stronger than steel.

42.- ______

A composer uses a limited set of tones as the starting point for melodies, which in turn are arranged into complex structures to create symphonies. Think of an orchestra, where each instrument plays a relatively simple series of tones. Only when combined do these tones become the complex sound we call classical music.

43.- _______

Composers have made use of the idea of interconnecting patterns for thousands of years, but only recently have these systems been understood mathematically. This maths shows that the principies of musical composition are shared by many seemingly quite difterent systems in the natural world.

44.- _______

The problem lies in our ignorance of the ways in which these are arranged . Sut in fact it is not the building block itself that is limiting our ability to create better materials , but rather our ignorance of the way in which these building blocks are arranged. To try to understand this better, scientists are copying the structure of silk fibres and turning it into musical compositions. This will help them create artificial materials for medical and engineering applications.

45.- _______

Listening to the music that was produced in this way improved their understanding of the mechanism by which the patterns of amino acids work together during the silk[1]spinning process. The patterns of amino acids that formed silk fibres of poor quality, for example, translated into music that was aggressive and harsh, while the ones that formed better fibres sounded softer and more fluid. In future work it is hoped that the design of the silk can be improved by enhancing those musical qualities that reflect better properties.

46.-________

Using music as a tool to create better materials and to improve urban living may seem like an unusual proposal, but when we appreciate that the underlying mathematics of the structure of music are shared across many fields of study, it begins to make sense. Nature does not distinguish between what is art and what is material, as all are merely patterns of structure in space and time.

 

A.-

In essence, a musician's piece is just one example of a system where smaller patterns are found inside larger ones - similar to the way characters form words, which form sentences, then chapters and eventually a novel.

 

B.-

Using this theory, we can discover universal patterns that form the blueprints of our world. We may be able to make everything we know - molecules, living tissues, music, the universe - by applying universal patterns indifferent physical contexts. For example, a pattern of building blocks might be represented as music, to create a certain melody, or might be represented as DNA to create a certain protein.

 

C.-

This approach has implications far beyond the design of new materials. In future, it might be possible to translate melodies to design better sequences of DNA, or even to reinvent transportation systems for cities.

 

D.-

Similarly, in the living world, a limited set of building blocks of DNA and amino acids creates some of the most remarkable materials we know of, the stuff that builds our bones and skin, and complex organs such as the brain.

 

E.-

In this translation from silk to music, they replaced the protein's building blocks with corresponding musical building blocks (tones and melody). As the music was played, they could 'hear' the different series of organic compounds they had used, and could then work out how certain qualities of the material, such as its mechanical strength, appear in musical terms.

 

F.-

As we begin to appreciate the importance of such patterns, engineers are applying this knowledge to the design of synthetic materials. Doing so, they can gain inspiration from a surprising source: music.

 

G.-

Even though nature uses this approach, people have failed to exploit the concept themselves when it comes to developing new materials. We have created thousands of different materials, originating from very different sources, such as plastics, metals or ceramics. But it seems we could benefit considerably from learning more about how nature uses its building blocks.

 

O’Dell Felicity (2016) Advanced Trainer. Reading Use of English Test 1 Part 7. Cambridge University Press: Dubai. Pages 36 and 37.