We all have aspirations, but how about winning a Grammy!

We all have aspirations, and in particular aspirations for our mathematical careers.  But how about winning a Grammy!

This past Friday (2/22/2008), NPR's Talk of the Nation "Science Friday" program featured a story that is definitely aspiration inspiring!

It turns out that this year's Grammy for "Best Historical Album" is being awarded (in part) to a mathematician.  University of New Hampshire Mathematics Professor Kevin Short algorithms in the area of compression and chaos were instrumental in restoring a historic recording of a live Woody Guthrie proformance made on a wire recorder in 1949.

Classic quote from the program:

[Interviewer]: "[So] there is a mathematical description, or you can characterize mathematically what it means to have a clear attack [on a note] from a guitar?"

[Short]: "Well sure." 

You can catch the program on NPR's website at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19279827 .  Another take on the story is at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080209/mathtrek.asp .