This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.Beethoven is a giant of classical music. And the most influential, too―at least, when it comes to piano compositions.That's according to a study in the journal EPJ Data Science.If you're wondering how data analysis could determine something as intangible as cultural influence, it's worth remembering this:"The great thing about music: it's the most mathematical of the art forms we actually can deal with.Because a lot of it is symbolic; it's temporal. So we have symbols.The music is written in symbols that are connected in time."Juyong Park is a theoretical physicist by training and associate professor of culture technology at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.Park and his colleagues collected 900 piano compositions by 19 composers spanning the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, from 1700 to 1910.Then they used that mathematical quality to their advantage by dividing each composition into what they called "code words,"a group of simultaneously played notes―in other words, a chord.They then compared each chord to the chord or note that came after it...
