The New Hampshire

Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Michael Rice On Feb. 10 Kevin Short, a mathematician and professor at UNH, holds a chance at winning a Grammy.

When most people think about the Grammy's, they think about the most talented musicians in the world. They think about the best song they heard in the previous year or their favorite band. They think about the red carpet, glamour and, of course, that really shiny trophy in the shape of a vintage record player. However, one thing that most people do not associate with the Grammy's is a mathematician.

On Feb. 10 Kevin Short, a mathematician and professor at UNH, will be walking down the red carpet with the chance to receive a Grammy for his restoration of a 1949 wire recording of a live Woody Guthrie concert.

"You don't exactly expect that as a mathematician," said Short. "Being able to say that you are a Grammy nominated mathematician is so unusual."

Short's journey into music restoration started with his discovery of Chaotic Compression Technology. With this discovery Short was able to stabilize a chaotic system with very little information, allowing the chaotic systems to produce over 26 thousand different wave forms that turned out to resemble musical instruments.

"We actually just started playing them out of speakers," said Short. "One of these wave forms might sound like an electric guitar, while another one might sound like a pipe organ. It sounded really cool, so people started asking me, 'can you use these wave forms to represent music that has really been recorded from true instruments', and I was successful there."

Through his discovery, Short was able to produce music files that were four times smaller than mp3s, which happen to be small enough to send to a cell phone. UNH filed for patents of Chaotic Compression Technology in 1998. Shortly after, Short used his discovery to start the company, Chaoticom, which is now known as Groove Mobile. So, not only is Short looked up to as being a Grammy Nominated mathematician, but he is also thanked every time a person's favorite band blares out of the speakers of his/her cell phone.

After Jamie Howarth, founder of Plangent Processes, a company that patented Clarity Audio Restoration technology, saw some of Short's work he got in touch with Short about doing musical restoration.

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