in fact, the word "music" itself derives from the muses, daughters of zeus and patron goddesses of creativeths, 3:2. and fourths, 4:3. for the greeks, these arithmetic ratios held great metaphysical significance because they believed that a single set of numbers from one to four was the source of all harmony. so their theories about music were intricately connected to their mathematical and philosophical description of the universe: how the planets, the sun and the stars vibrated in harmony, creating a "music of the spheres." in the ensuing 2,000 years, we've learned that this connection between math and music, whether mystical or not, is all about waves. sound is simply a disturbance of air, as pythagoras observed, a vibration, but as we now understand, a vibration that extends through space in the form of a wave. the initial disturbance can be caused by anything, and that anything is called an oscillator, like a vibrating string. but like ripples on a pond, the sound wave spreads when molecules in the air are disturbed and themselves begin to vibrate. the vibrating air molecules, in turn,