4'33" and absolute what?

[Murthy Yenamandra]

In a previous message MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu writes:
> grip writes:
> >At the risk of saying the obvious, 4'33" = 273". The temperature at which 
> >all molecular motion ceases is -273 C. Hence the silence.
> Hey grip, if I am going to be--rightfully--called to task for
> continually forgetting that 4'37" is not the same as 4' 33", I guess I
> am allowed to point out that 273 is not the same as -273. Hence the
> lack of silence.

Here is a plausible explanation: if you take the ending of the piece as
your reference point, then the piece begins at time -273 and progresses
towards zero. This could explain the complete silence of the audience at
the beginning of the piece (no molecular motion), which gives way to
noise, laughter, catcalls etc (some signs of life, instead of the dead
silence of zero degrees kelvin). The piece is more or less warming up
the audience out of their dead slumber.

Worth a shot.

Murthy


-- 
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. Email: yenamand at cs.umn.edu
   "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
    swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
    wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour  
    to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all ..."