“When I was little, I would stretch rubber bands across cabinet and drawer handles,” says Zhang. “A rubber band produces a different pitch when you pluck it, depending on the material and depending on the tension. So I wondered if I could make an entire scale.” When he succeeded, Zhang says he wanted to know how it worked.
Zhang has since pondered the science behind many more observations — and played scales of a more traditional variety. At MIT, he is double-majoring in physics and mathematics with computer science, and minoring in music. Zhang says his double major allowed him to pursue all three of his academic interests, forming what he calls a “math and friends umbrella.”
“What draws me to these academic fields is that I tend to be pretty analytical,” he says. “Computers are cool and math is fun, but I really like this particular way of thinking — being able to understand something from first principles.”
Trying to understand the science underlying an...
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