The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond (14 page)

Dmitri interrupted. “I apologize for the sudden shift of priorities. Do you remember our discussion last year regarding Professor McPinsky’s ideas about interspecies communication?”

“Of course we remember.” Seema replied in crisp, enunciated tones. “You’re referring to his challenge to the scientific community to break the linguistic codes of other sentient species like whales and dolphins and engage them in dialogue.”

“But it’s already been done,” said Andrew. “Koko the gorilla has learned to communicate using sign language gestures.”

“Touché,” replied Dmitri. “Over a thousand signs, in fact, but that’s just scratching the surface of human potential. Koko’s gorilla brain is just one-third the size of a human’s and her measured IQ barely tops eighty-five.”

“And the whales?”

“Their brains are at least four times bigger than ours with gobs of cortex. Think about the possibilities.”

“But surely you don’t think our team can attempt such an ambitious task?”

Dmitri rocked in his chair. The swaying motion helped to moderate his heartbeat and focus his thoughts. “A week ago, I would have agreed with you. While in Hawaii, however, I discovered both the means and the motive for pursuing such a controversial research project.” Andrew furrowed his brow. “Riddle me this. Why would a fifty-ton, fifty-foot-long, fourteen-pound-brained whale leap completely out of the ocean with such reckless abandon?”

“Why do seemingly intelligent people jump from airplanes?” replied Andrew.

“Exactly!” When Dmitri slammed his palm on the desk, both students recoiled. “It could be a leap of the imagination, by a mind that’s evolved over thirty million years. To experience novel forces: the weight of their bodies, the deceleration and acceleration through the ether, the thrill of the wind, the chill of evaporative cooling on their skin, and finally the jolt of the impact.”

“Like a roller-coaster ride,” said Seema.

“More than that,” replied Dmitri, his voice rising on an updraft of emotion. “Just as humans seek to explore other worlds, the curious humpbacks thrust skyward for a kaleidoscopic vision of the world above—brilliant light, intense colors, mountains, clouds, and alien craft.”

“Sounds like you had a great time in Maui, boss.”

Dmitri, seeing his students’ tentative expressions, realized he’d better dial down on the intensity. “The more I directly observed and learned about the behavior of the humpback whales, a common thread emerged, a level of intelligence meriting further investigation. And thanks to the marine biologists at the Pacific Institute for Cetacean Educational Studies, I’ve brought back recent recordings of whale songs we can scrutinize.”

Seema swiveled slowly, back and forth, in her chair. In the same rhythm, she stroked a lock of jet black hair between her thumb and forefinger, as if she were bowing a string instrument. Dmitri recognized the telltale sign of an impending question.

“I’m sure I will appreciate the humpbacks’ songs,” she said, “but how do you propose we make the conceptual leap from music to the identification of linguistic symbols?”

“Do I detect a glimmer of interest?” Dmitri knew damn well his students couldn’t resist the challenge. He considered Seema Roy and Andrew Chu the most exceptional of the many outstanding graduate students he’d advised in SoCalSci’s Engineering Communications Program. After graduating at the head of her class from the Bangalore Institute of Technology, Seema had applied to some of the world’s top graduate engineering schools. Since it had been her dream to experience California’s rich tapestry of academic, cultural, and scenic attractions, she had not hesitated to accept SoCalSci’s generous offer of a stipend and research assistantship.

Seema was a gifted musician, a violinist, who nonetheless realized the advantages of an advanced degree in an income-generating profession. She’d confided in Dmitri the hope that, with a mechanical engineering diploma in acoustics, she could one day design improved or even new types of musical instruments. Currently, she was investigating the properties that defined the superior tone quality of notable stringed instruments such as the Stradivarius violins. Dmitri knew she appreciated his support of a project that other professors would dismiss as too conjectural.

Andrew, an upbeat and competitive, second-generation Chinese-American, was also stellar. He had graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree from SoCalSci. Despite Andrew’s wisecracking facade, Dmitri understood this young man was, like himself, passionately devoted to the fields of digital voice and signal processing engineering. During their joint research activities, Andrew had marveled aloud about the deep-space probes that could transmit pictures and data from Saturn, Neptune, and beyond. Dmitri took pride in the work of the brilliant SoCalSci colleagues who had designed the sophisticated error-correction codes to repair the data waveforms damaged by radiation.

Andrew frequented the university athletic center’s handball courts, and like many of the serious student athletes, he sported a buzz cut. Dmitri admired the young man’s disciplined workout regimen and his impressive physique. It was obvious that Andrew relished their weekly handball matches.

As rising stars, Seema and Andrew had earned a virtually guaranteed first choice in the selection of a major field advisor. Independent and adventurous, they had wanted more than a secure roadmap toward the pursuit of their advanced degrees. During their due diligence survey of the engineering faculty, some of their more senior schoolmates had spoken in superlatives about Dmitri. They reported that he treated his students like peers, and that he encouraged them to develop proposals based upon their own interests rather than coercing them into accepting pre-formatted research projects. Most importantly, Seema and Andrew were well aware that Associate Professor Dmitri had himself been mentored by the illustrious and iconoclastic Professor Theodosius McPinsky.

“Okay boss,” said Andrew, cupping his hands behind his head. “As usual, you’ve piqued our interest. What’s the history and current status of whale song research and how do we fit into this picture?”

Dmitri stood. “It’s a remarkable
National Geographic
story.” He started to pace slowly, his eyes studying the wavy patterns woven into the carpet. “Over forty years ago, marine biologist Roger Payne and his colleagues pioneered the acoustical analysis of humpback whale vocalizations. He discovered that, unlike bird songs or the utterances of any other species, these particular vocalizations exhibited a rudimentary linguistic structure. Using pre-digital technology, Payne identified about a dozen different types of discrete sound elements called ‘units.’”

Dmitri stopped pacing. He reached down and rotated his laptop so that the screen faced his guests. “Here’s a time and frequency plot from Payne’s original research paper.” He touched the screen, pointing to alternating sequences of squiggly lines and blobs, arranged somewhat like sheet music. “You can see each unit has an average duration of about 2.5 seconds, separated by intervals of silence. Payne classified these sound units according to their acoustical attributes. Some, like our vowels, contained elements of frequency- and amplitude-modulated harmonics. Others had a broadband frequency character like our consonants and sounded like rumbles, grunts, and gurgles.”

Seema pivoted her chair toward Dmitri. “So you’re saying these sound units are similar to the phonemes of our spoken language?”

“On the surface, yes, but it gets better than that. Look at the next slide.” Dmitri clicked his mouse to refresh the screen. “Payne also proved that these units were organized into repeating and varying patterns of short and long duration, similar to the short phrases and longer themes in human songs. Each song can last up to thirty minutes and sometimes for many hours. Even more fascinating, Payne’s wife Katy discovered that a humpback population’s song constantly evolves during each season and from year to year. The Paynes became environmental heroes. Their findings were persuasive evidence of whale intelligence and instrumental in the U.S. Congress’s passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. They also influenced the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium on the commercial whaling of endangered species like humpbacks.”

“Okay,” said Andrew. “So he’s a Payne in the fluke to the whaling nations.”

Dmitri groaned. “I’ll ignore that.”

Andrew raised a hand. “Has anyone else used more sophisticated techniques and advanced computing power to study the songs?”

“Bingo. In fact, as recently as three years ago, an engineering team at Columbia applied information theory. They measured the information content of the whales’ lexicon in the context of their song. They also confirmed Payne’s observations that whale songs are hierarchical in structure, similar to the way human language is organized into clauses and sentences.”

Seema sighed. “I realize you’re both familiar with communication theory but as an acoustics major, I just signed up for this semester’s Engineering Communications 101 class.”

Dmitri smiled at her. “Then let me explain.” At the whiteboard behind his desk, he sketched out the interconnected rectangular, circular, and diamond shapes representing a system block diagram. “Think about a message such as a book, an email, or a song. In this context, the information content of the message is proportional to the number of words in the dictionary of the message’s native language. The units of measurement are called ‘bits,’ representing the exponential powers of the number ‘two.’”

“Can you give a simple example?” asked Seema.

Dmitri nodded and wrote the numbers 4 and 2 in the middle of the diagram. “If you have a simple language which consists of four words, then two times two equals four, so the information content is two bits. If you double the number of words in the language from four to eight, then two times two times two equals eight. So any message written in that language contains up to three bits of information.”

“Got it,” replied Seema. “Every time you double the number of word entries in a language’s dictionary, the information content measured in bits increases by one. It’s a base two logarithmic scale.”

“Yes, good. It’s similar to the way earthquakes are measured on the Richter Scale.”

“Except that’s a base ten logarithmic scale,” said Andrew. “A magnitude seven earthquake is ten times more powerful than one that registers magnitude six.”

Dmitri wrote the numbers 8,000 and 13 on the board. “So, for the English language, nearly all messages can be expressed using 8,000 of the most commonly used words.” He tapped the number 8,000.

Seema reached for her iPhone and played with the touchscreen. She touched her palm on the whiteboard where Dmitri had written the number 13. “According to my calculator, if you multiply the number
two
thirteen times, it equals 8,192, which is the power of two closest to 8,000.”

“Exactly,” replied Dmitri. “The information content of messages sent in the English language is therefore thirteen bits.” He gestured toward Andrew. “Why don’t you continue?”

Andrew nodded. “However, that’s the maximum possible amount of information in the source message, assuming that all of the words are equally likely. But in fact we know that many English words are used more frequently than others. The probability of each word is also dependent upon syntax, its placement in a sentence, and the context of the neighboring words.” He paused. “Engineers exploit these statistical dependencies and redundancies to design more efficient sets of code words that compress the amount of data required to transmit or store a message. It’s so cool, like freeze-dried food. Just remove the water and add it back later.”

“‘Freeze-dried food.’ That’s a good one, Andrew. Can I borrow that gem for one of my lectures?”

“Sure, boss, just remember to give me credit.”

Andrew’s smile reminded Dmitri of the tooth-whitening ads gracing the walls of his dentist’s waiting room.

“So, to finish up, Seema,” Andrew continued, “these data compression formulations are essential to all types of digital communication technologies such as Internet file transfers, wireless iPad and iPhone transmissions, and the storage of audio and video information onto CDs and DVDs.”

Despite his own tension, Dmitri cast a smile of satisfaction in the direction of his protégé. “Because of these redundancies, the actual information content of the English language can be compressed from thirteen to ten bits per word.” He crossed out the number 13 on the board, writing a 10 directly above. “So, the Columbia team used similar techniques to compute the redundancies of the periodic units in the whale songs. Interestingly, they measured the information content of the Hawaiian whale songs to be a measly one bit per sound unit.”

“Jeesh,” said Andrew. “There’s no comparison. That’s one bit for whales compared to ten bits for human speech, measured on a logarithmic scale.”

“Exactly,” said Dmitri. “They concluded that human language conveys hundreds of times more information than humpback language. The implication is that, although the whales sing a pleasant tune, they don’t measure up to the higher standard of human intelligence. But, and this is vitally important, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the stigma implied in their findings might discourage others from investigating cetacean languages.”

Andrew sighed. “So it sounds like all the work’s been done before and the answer is
nada
. Doesn’t that leave us out in the cold?”