GEMS December 6th Session

From the hiss of white noise to the gentle hum of ocean waves, randomness surrounds us — yet hidden within that chaos lies remarkable order. In this talk, we’ll explore how unpredictable events, when viewed collectively, give rise to smooth and universal patterns. We’ll listen to and visualize the “colors” of noise — white, pink, and brown — to see how sound encodes randomness across different frequencies. We’ll discover how unrelated random events, like coin flips or marble drops, merge into beautifully predictable bell-shaped distributions. And we’ll watch how diffusion and blurring transform disorder into structure, revealing the same mathematics behind sound, heat, and motion.

Along the way, we’ll take part in hands-on activities: generating and analyzing noise spectra, building simple low-pass “smoothing” filters, and experimenting with diffusion and random walks to watch chaos become order before our eyes. No advanced math required — just curiosity and a willingness to play with randomness!