(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...WCWC- Westminster Chime Wind Chime
I really like this work.
It is a Windchime that I built from scrap. It is installed along the edge of Van Cortlandt Park up in the Bronx. It has 4 pipes tuned to the 4 notes of the Westminster Chimes! The idea is that it is cosmically unlikely, but over a long enough timeline, inevitable, that the wind will play out the simple pattern of the Westminster chimes! I would love to be underneath it when that happens! What good luck! Like finding a four leaf clover, but a zillion times better. Anyone good at math and probabilities who could help me out with some estimates? How long might it take for chance to play it? EVEN BETTER, How long might it take for chance to play it and then chime out the correct hour, on the hour?!?
This reminds me of an old photography project I saw many, many years ago (and now forget the details of) In it, a photographer threw 4 tennis balls into the air, and took a photo. He repeated this again and again (This is before the days of instant digital results) and printed the shots wherein the 4 balls happened to form the most perfect square! Very cool. Obviously made an impression- I still remember the piece, if not the artist. Anyone know the artist? Help me out here?
Video of me playing the WCWC here:
October 7th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
He was called Baldessari, and the pictures are beautiful, apparently it took 36 attempts.
Hope that helps.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Thanks for the info!
here’s a pic if anyones interested: http://www.desordre.net/photographie/photographes/robert_frank/baldessari.gif
October 7th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
How cool! And I never knew what that melody was called, so thank you for my random fact of the day! In return, some numbers…
If you’re just looking for the 16 tones in order, going by pure chance that’s roughly a 1 in 4.3 billion chance every time it chimes. Assuming this will chime randomly once a second, day in and day out, it could be over a century before you hear the right melody.
Now if you want to hear it with the 2-beat pauses after each 4 chimes, if you figure there’s an equal chance of each pipe chiming or none chiming at all, that’s a 1 in 60 quadrillion chance, and you might be waiting nearly 2 billion years.
And then to chime the right hour after that, not even worrying about the timing, would be 1 in 70 septillion. You might have to wait 2 or 3 quintillion years, which is about 200 million times the estimated age of the universe.
Now, I’m a math guy not a weather one, so I’ve got no clue if this is even close to realistic. But it seems like if you made a hundred or thousand of these and put them in well-traveled places, someone might just hear a rough version of the westminster chimes in your lifetime! I think I’d just about die from awe if I witnessed it.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Hi Will! I’m a weather guy (for real). In the city one can probably safely assume a 1 chime per second ish rate of chiming, which would increase via frontal passage, daily EET’s, and other effects. Unfortunately because this is in a city it can be expected that the effect of most boundary layer (and wind causing) weather events will have a minimal effect. So, possibly it would be safe to assume for an hour or so every day it chimes 2 or 3 times a second, but this wouldn’t help the odds much.
Also Post, good stuff
October 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
This is awesome! I love windchimes! My friend and I always talked about making some (she wanted to use dried bamboo), but never got around to it. So it makes me happy to see yours. So cool!!!
March 16th, 2010 at 12:28 am
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