Once in a blue moon

I have recently learned that a blue moon is a second full moon in a calendar month. May 31, 2026 will be a blue moon. It’s a relatively rare event, hence the saying :

“Once in a blue moon”

In 2018, I was in a cello class, while I don’t recall what I was butchering practicing at the time, I remember doing what many “young” students do: slow down in a complicated set of bars and accelerate when things were getting tougher. My teacher kindly told me that though I am a physicist I should not be allowed to accelerate time. Annnnd my brain went boom !

I simply could not help it, I was swamped with the urge, nay, the visceral need to share with her what I had learned as a physics student about time and relativity: “Actually, this is a great point and even if I wanted to I can’t accelerate time, it’s ….” and I explained to her the two minute version of the meaning of special relativity.

Later that evening, a little worm of an idea formed in my head. It happily started chewing on the headspace dedicated to chores, nom, nom nom.

Understanding time is vital in physics, it pops in the equation of motions, in the definitions of metrics, etc.

Understanding time is also vital in music, it pops in the scores, in the metrics, etc.

Another boom in my head, fear not, no worms were hurt in the process.

At my next class, I very shyly told my cello teacher Thalie: “What if we imagine, yes, let me start again…do you think it would be interesting or even possible that, maybe , we could imagine a collaboration between you and I ? I have no clue of what the form could be, but we could imagine that we could explain to people what time means in physics and music, it could possibly, maybe be interesting, what do you think?”. And yes, my skin complexion was more compatible with one of a beautiful Sicilian tomato than my usual café au lait. Thalie kindly said that she would think about it and get back to me.

A few moments later…

In the mean time the worm idea was expanding and taking a life of its own, more nom nom nom. On December 31st at 16:00 in the afternoon I wrote to her an email with the following title:

A project proposal exploring the concept of time in music and physics.

here is a snippet of the email

From a physics perspective: Special relativity, formalized by Albert Einstein in 1905, teaches us that time is no longer an absolute quantity.

In classical physics (Galileo, Newton, and others), time is treated as an absolute dimension, meaning that it flows in the same way in all systems.

We may have the impression that time passes faster or slower if we are bored or, conversely, if we are having a good time, but in practice, time always flows in the same way, neither faster nor slower. The only thing that changes is our perception of time.

I go on about explaining, what the gamma factor means in the boost, the paradox of the twins and so on.

Long story short, she discussed with her quartet, they all like the idea (oui !!!), we had a number of meetings and the project also took a life of its own, it grew limbs and many heads and it became something way bigger than what I had initially imagined when I told her my initial “what if”.

We since performed our “création originale” four times in front of hundreds of people.

There is magic in the creative process and I have a fascination with the “how” of it all. I find few things more beautiful in the human nature than the urge to make something out of nothing, not because it’s useful or efficient, but simply because a random spark needed to ignite, expand, and metamorphose into its own type of creature.

Blue moons are rare and so are the Mona Lisas, however, maybe, possibly, there is magic hiding in the most mundane moments ? And maybe, possibly, being open to magic could be the salt to our delicious Sicilian tomato?

Pictures & more information : https://www.yasmineamhis.com/de-temps-en-temps