The sounds of science: II. Listening to dynamical systems—Towards a musical exploration of complexity

General philosophical aspects of the rendering of scientific data are discussed, with applications to auditory representations of scientific models. Scientific simulations or models of real world phenomena frequently lead to large quantities of complex numerical output. The generating mathematical/computer model is often realized through a set of static and/or (frequently) dynamic descriptors. The rendering of this descriptor set is formally considered in terms of mappings which result in visual, sonic, etc. sensorial stimulation of some sort. In this paper, we concern ourselves with the issue of rendering of complex descriptor sets. The emphasis is on sonic rendering as viewed from both an artistic and a scientific viewpoint. We examine the problem of finding and creating musical compositions based upon such scientific formulations.