2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Alien (1979, dir. Ridley Scott)

Aliens (1986, dir. James Cameron)

Armageddon (1998, dir. Michael Bay)

Avatar (2009, dir. James Cameron)

Battleship (2012, dir. Peter Berg)

Cargo (2009, dir. Ivan Engler, Ralph Etter)

Elysium (2013, dir. Neill Blomkamp)

Europa Report (2013, dir. Sebastián Cordero)

Event Horizon (1997, dir. Paul Anderson)

Gravity (2013, dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014, dir. James Gunn)

Interstellar (2014, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Lockout (2012, dir. James Mather, Stephen St. Leger)

Lost in Space (1998, dir. Stephen Hopkins)

Man of Steel (2013, dir. Zack Snyder)

Mission to Mars (2000, dir. Brian De Palma)

Moon (2009, dir. Duncan Jones)

Oblivion (2013, dir. Joseph Kosinski)

Pandorum (2009, dir. Christian Alvart)

Prometheus (2012, dir. Ridley Scott)

Solaris (1972, dir. Andrey Tarkovskiy)

Solaris (2002, dir. Steven Soderbergh)

Star Trek (2009, dir. J.J. Abrams)

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013, dir. J.J. Abrams)

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977, dir. George Lucas)

Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983, dir.Richard Marquand)

Starship Troopers (1997, dir. Paul Verhoeven)

Sunshine (2007, dir. Danny Boyle)

The Fountain (2006, dir. Darren Aronofsky)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005, dir. Garth Jennings)

The Last Days on Mars (2013, dir. Ruairi Robinson)

The Signal (2014, dir. William Eubank)

Thor: The Dark World (2013, dir. Alan Taylor)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011, dir. Michael Bay)

To get an idea of how Risset Rhythm works we’ll need to review how our brains process sound. Consider the brain as a famously impulsive file clerk who can’t stand to have information just sitting around, clogging up its synapses. As such, when information comes in, the brain quickly places it in what it considers to be the most appropriate “file” to make room for new input. When the brain gets bits of information that don’t fit exactly into a prescribed file, it makes an assumption, throwing this information into a file that it considers “close enough.” Sometimes the brain misplaces information into the wrong file. These wrong assumptions, or “file” placements, are why we mistake visual, audio, or other sensory details: why we think a mirage in the desert is a watering hole, a prick of a needle on a couch is an insect bite, the voice on the other end of the phone line is your current girlfriend not your psycho ex.

The brain can make these same incorrect assumptions with rhythms.

When we hear any repeated pattern of sounds the brain will immediately try to place the pattern into a rhythm file, even if this pattern is random and doesn’t perfectly fit. In this rhythm file the brain will attempt to put the pattern in a logical sequence of beats. Risset Rhythm takes advantage of these incorrect assumptions. It subtly merges a loop of increasing beats and sounds over and over. The brain doesn’t notice these subtle transitions between the beginning and ending of the loop, it assumes that the rhythm is constantly speeding up. As a result, we hear the Risset Rhythm loop as a continuous pattern, one that is constantly getting faster and faster.

I’ll wait around for days
this porch on which I pace
I need you mine I need me yours
You stole my breath away
You swore to me you’d stay
I’ve found something that I adore
Oh how
How we supposed to go on
Not knowing if you
bleed the way I do
I do (well I did)
are your eyes traveling elsewhere
You need to know I got the bones rolling hard against the floor
And if you left i’d break until the little pieces felt no more
Whisper the things we’d scream
now kid let’s not get mean
I need you mine I need me yours
Four walls and fancy friends
Don’t need me none of them
Because I’ve got you know and that’s enough (Well I’m glad)(Well so am I)
Let’s take good from our past
Patch holes with things that last
Let’s tear it up here you and I
Oh how
How we supposed to go on
Not knowing if you
bleed the way I do
I do (well I did)
are your eyes traveling elsewhere
You need to know I got the bones rolling hard against the floor
And if you left I’d break until the little pieces felt no more
Well these fights sure do take a lot out of me
but the secret I can tell you is I still do believe
I can’t promise that I’ll always be careful with things
But just know that I’ll expect it if you ever do leave
Sweet Marie
I love your name
Oh babe
can you turn your heart this way
Oh how
How we supposed to go on
Not knowing if you
bleed the way I do
I do (well I did)
are your bags traveling elsewhere
You need to know I got the bones rolling hard against the floor
And if you left I’d break until the little pieces felt no more

The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.

These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.

So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big – but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.

That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive… – Neil deGrasse Tyson