This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

If you're a fan of the Beatles, you no doubt know that

she loves you, yeah,

came before.

But what about...

I need somebody...

Or... Or, you may not know which came first, but researchers from Lawrence, Lawrence,

you may not know which came first, but researchers from Lawrence Technological University in Michigan

created an algorithm that does.

By analyzing the evolving structure of the Beatles music, the computer program was able to correctly

place the Fab Four's albums in chronological order.

That work is in the journal

Pattern Recognition Letters. The researchers initially produced the

algorithm to catalog whale songs. And they figured what worked for killer

whales should also work for the lads from Liverpool.

The program converts audio data into a visual spectrogram.

An image it then evaluates for texture, shape, and pattern.

Based on this analysis, the algorithm could tell that

was from the early days and

came in through the bathroom window. Came near the end. It even correctly estimated that songs from Let It Be

were recorded before those on Abbey Road, although Abbey Road was released first.

The algorithm also worked for the albums of Queen, U2, and Abba. But the computer came

...