A Black Hole Vibrating

Is it true that something can vibrate 57 octaves below middle C!!!

That's what I read in todays NYT Science section in an article on the
sound of galaxies, and on a particular black hole vibrating.
WOuldn't going backwards down the doubling series (octaves) from
middle C, get to zero cycles per second way before 57 droppings? Or
is this a Zeno type of thing, where there are an infinite number of
ocataves as you approach zero cycles per second.

thanks for helping a math dumby..., Kelly

traktus5 wrote:

> That's what I read in todays NYT Science section in an article on the > sound of galaxies, and on a particular black hole vibrating. > WOuldn't going backwards down the doubling series (octaves) from > middle C, get to zero cycles per second way before 57 droppings? Or > is this a Zeno type of thing, where there are an infinite number of > ocataves as you approach zero cycles per second. Lowering by an octave means dividing the frequency by two. If you divide a positive number by 2, the result is always another positive number. So no matter how many octaves you go down, you can never reach 0 cycles per seconds. (Well, barring infinities)

This black hole seems to oscillate once ever 17.5 million years.

Graham

Wow, 17.5 million years...sounds like a John Cage piece!

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <graham@m...> wrote:
> traktus5 wrote:
>
> > That's what I read in todays NYT Science section in an article on
the
> > sound of galaxies, and on a particular black hole vibrating.
> > WOuldn't going backwards down the doubling series (octaves) from
> > middle C, get to zero cycles per second way before 57 droppings?
Or
> > is this a Zeno type of thing, where there are an infinite number
of
> > ocataves as you approach zero cycles per second.
>
> Lowering by an octave means dividing the frequency by two. If you
> divide a positive number by 2, the result is always another
positive
> number. So no matter how many octaves you go down, you can never
reach
> 0 cycles per seconds. (Well, barring infinities)
>
> This black hole seems to oscillate once ever 17.5 million years.
>
>
> Graham