In general, the American public is woefully under-educated about science (see where you sit by taking the Pew Research Centers’ Science Knowledge Quiz).  While this is partially a failing of our schools, I’ve always thought scientists needed to find compelling ways to present scientific material. 

Enter musician John Boswell, who may be onto something with his Symphony of Science.  Mr. Boswell has taken videos of leading scientists discussing scientific theories, done some digital magic to modulate their voices, and put the whole thing to spacey electronica, creating compositions that are fascinating to behold, yet surprisingly educational.

Mr. Boswell’s most recent composition is a piece called “The Quantum World”, which examines the nature of atoms and subatomic particles and features the “musical stylings” of Morgan Freeman, Frank Close, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Hawking.  I found this one particularly interesting because I’m in the middle of reading Sean Carroll’s From Eternity to Here, a non-fiction book about the nature of time (it’s research for the time travel story I’ve been writing).  Other heady science topics given the musical treatment are evolution, biodiversity, Mars, and the Big Bang.  If you’re looking for something on the trippy side, head over to Symphony of Science, turn down the lights, fire up the lava lamp, and groove to Steven Hawking, Carl Sagan, and Neil deGrasse Tyson (among others) “singing” about the beginning of the universe.