This Blind Astrophysicist 'Sees' the Universe in the Most Amazing Way | Short Film Showcase

Everything in the universe has so much uncertainty. This movie is very dynamic. [Music] But it is such a beautiful symphony all the time. [Music]

I am from Puerto Rico. The town I grew up in is a tiny town in DBT Tyler. Like, I never knew what a Ph.D. degree was that some people acquired. I developed diabetes when I was a child that caused me to develop diabetic retinopathy and to lose my sight. [Music]

Tomita was very sad at the beginning, and I didn't want to tell anyone. So the professor would write on the blackboard, and he would write a theorem. I would hear only the chalk on the blackboard. I felt like I had been excommunicated from the field—completely excommunicated. I had never had the opportunity to look through a telescope, but it has given me tools to rediscover myself.

I am an astrophysicist and a computer scientist. I study the universe through sound. The universe is big, and I want to study it. People ask, "How do you do it?" They are used to people just looking at the sky, but sound can make something clear when it is not just something clear to the human eye.

Each piece of data is given a sound; that can be a piano, it can be an arm, or it can be a human voice. Everything in the universe has its own voice, has like its own personality—the way it behaves, the way it communicates. If I convert it into sound, different measurements, and I listen to them, it will sound like a symphonic orchestra. You can get a sense of the science inside of that orchestration. [Music]

In the past, people spoke about the music of the spheres—that the universe exists in this wonderful harmony. Because if we only see with our eyes, our perception is very nice. [Music] [Music] You [Music]