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wtf is cosmicbackgroundmusic?

rakyll/cosmicbackgroundmusic — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-08-03 · repo last pushed 2014-10-05

13GoAudience · generalComplexity · 2/5DormantSetup · moderate

TL;DR

Turns the Cosmic Microwave Background, the oldest light in the universe, into sound. You click on a map of the Big Bang's afterglow and hear that region as audio.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Maps ancient light
      Plays it as sound
      Local web server
    Tech stack
      Go
      PortAudio
      Web browser UI
    Use cases
      Space enthusiasts
      Science students
      Meditative audio
    Audience
      Curious explorers
      Art meets science
    Setup
      Install Go
      Install PortAudio
      Run from command line

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Listen to the oldest light in the universe by clicking on a map of the cosmic microwave background.

REASON 2

Use as a meditative, art-meets-science audio experience tied to real cosmological data.

REASON 3

Share with students or space enthusiasts as an interactive way to explore the Big Bang's afterglow.

What's in the stack?

GoPortAudio

How it stacks up

rakyll/cosmicbackgroundmusicawlx/packetyeeterhuey1in/kiroclaim
Stars131313
LanguageGoGoGo
Last pushed2014-10-05
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultymoderatehardmoderate
Complexity2/55/53/5
Audiencegeneralops devopsops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires both Go and the PortAudio audio library to be installed before the program will build and run.

Wtf does this do

Cosmic Background Music is a small, poetic project that lets you listen to the Cosmic Microwave Background, the oldest light in the universe, left over from the Big Bang roughly 13 billion years ago. Instead of just showing you a picture of it, the program turns that ancient radiation into sound, so you can hear a kind of audio fossil from the dawn of the cosmos. When you run the program, it starts a small server on your computer. You open your web browser to a local page, where you see a map of the cosmic microwave background. You click on a region of the map, and the program translates the data from that spot into audio, playing it back through your speakers. It is essentially an interactive, listenable version of the universe's oldest light. The audience here is the curious, anyone who finds the idea of hearing the Big Bang's afterglow appealing. It is not a productivity tool or a framework, it is more of an art-meets-science experience. A space enthusiast, a student, or just someone who wants a meditative, slightly eerie audio experience tied to real cosmological data would enjoy playing with it. Getting it running requires a couple of prerequisites that the README does not deeply explain. You need Go (a programming language) and PortAudio (a free audio library) installed on your machine, then you install and run the program from the command line. The project is lightweight and clearly built more as a passion experiment than a polished product, but for thirteen stars on GitHub, it delivers a genuinely unique idea: turning the universe's oldest light into something you can hear.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Install Go and PortAudio on my machine, then clone and run the cosmicbackgroundmusic project so I can hear the Cosmic Microwave Background as sound.
Prompt 2
Help me troubleshoot PortAudio installation issues on macOS so I can run this Go program that turns the universe's oldest light into audio.
Prompt 3
Walk me through starting the local server for cosmicbackgroundmusic and opening the interactive map so I can click regions and hear the data as sound.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is cosmicbackgroundmusic?

Turns the Cosmic Microwave Background, the oldest light in the universe, into sound. You click on a map of the Big Bang's afterglow and hear that region as audio.

What language is cosmicbackgroundmusic written in?

Mainly Go. The stack also includes Go, PortAudio.

Is cosmicbackgroundmusic actively maintained?

Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2014-10-05).

How hard is cosmicbackgroundmusic to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is cosmicbackgroundmusic for?

Mainly general.

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