I've always had a soft spot for Mathmatica, Wolfram Research's insanely powerful computation program - if only because they have such a rich history of being good to educators. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

I'm also a sucker for interesting science and math, especially chaos theory (but that might just be an affinity for Jeff Goldblum's Jurrasic Park character). So WolframTones really hits me in my weak spot. They have extensive about pages that explain how it all works. It's based on a book called A New Kind of Science. I'll give you my layman's interpretation:

• Step 1: Start with a very simple computational rule.
• Step 2: Repeat that rule over and over again
• Step 3: Notice that some rules, iterated over and over again, give you boring, simple patterns.
• Step 4: Notice that some other rules actually result in beautiful and seemingly random pattens (my touchstone for this concept has always been The Julia Set).
• Step 5: Take a slice of one of those interesting, complex sets and put it to music.

You'll find a much better and fuller explanation here. It's all part of what Wolfram calls "the computational universe." My understanding is that he's taking the fundamental insight that complex and interesting systems can arise out of a small set of very simple rules and noticing that it might be possible to apply that insight to other systems -- like the universe itself.

So maybe it's just me, but when I hear these little midi tunes I feel like I'm listening to the "Music of the Spheres." As their site says:

Without the intuition of A New Kind of Science it wouldn't seem plausible that one could just search for music in this way. But the remarkable fact is that--much like in nature--complex behavior is actually common enough in the computational universe that one can find it just by searching. Wolfram's phenomenon of computational irreducibility shows you can't expect to know in advance where you'll find any particular kind of complexity. But you can always just explore--and WolframTones shows you what you can find.

I find this kind of stuff simply fascinating.

Anyway, back to Treos. Obviously, it's quite a stretch to say any of this is related directly to Treos. But since I'm an English guy, I'll do the English-thing and apply a scientific theory I don't fully understand to a context it doesn't really apply to. You know, for fun:

• Step 1: Simple rule: Try to reduce the number of devices one carries around.
• Step 2: Start using convergence devices
• Step 3: Notice that a lot of these convergence devices are pretty boring
• Step 4: Notice that the Treo seems to hit a great balance between size, power, and functionality.
• Step 5: Pick your favorite Treo and find out all the complexity that's built-in to this seemingly simple device.

Yes, I am that corny. But I'm comfortable with that because it lets me appreciate neat ideas like WolframTones.

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