A Grammy in Math (broadcast Friday, February 22nd, 2008)

These spools contain wire recordings of a Woody Guthrie performance from 1949. An album of the restored recordings, The Live Wire, won a Grammy award for Best Historical Recording. Courtesy of The Woody Guthrie Archives, Photograph by Bradly Brown

Can you win a Grammy for math? In this segment, Joe talks with Kevin Short, a mathematician at the University of New Hampshire.

Short shared in a Grammy award recently for his work in restoring “The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949.” The original recording was made by a college student in 1949 using a magnetic wire recorder. Short's mathematical work on compression and chaos was used to help adjust the speed and timing in the old recording, improving pitch and clarity. Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.