During the past few years I've gotten really into thinking about sound and light oscillations and frequencies. Their detections by the eyes and ears are so powerful that their patterns are the main components of which we base our reality. Understanding the properties of audio and visual communications (through transmission and detection by humans) allows one to exert control over a design.

Broken down in terms of physics our eyes pick up light oscillations at the different frequencies which make up colors. The visible spectrum is a small section of the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum. This includes everything from Gamma Rays to Radio, as we can see in this chart.

Similarly, sound is the vibration of molecules at certain hertz that include everything from the sub-sonic to ultra-sonic range.

It's interesting to note the large section of the audio/visual world that we are blind to. We only experience a fraction of the world around us.

It's also interesting to think about the correlation between sound and visuals and all terms they share with each other. Musical chords are notes that harmonize with each other, meaning their hertz values sync with each other, causing pleasing sounds to the ear. Similarly, color harmonies are those which hertz values sync with each other in pleasing ways to our eyes. Why is it that black and white go with just about anything? Because white is every color together and black is the absense of color.

The works of video artist John Whitney(1917-1995) were a visual exploration of sound. He felt that music was an integral part of the visual experience and created series of videos that linked color hertz values with sound hertz values. The videos looked like a kaleidoscopic oscilloscopes. Mr. Whitney was also a pioneer of computer graphics in his later career, using computer programs and setting up equations to generate graphics.