science

Sosumi

Sosumi is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sosumi rather than just read about it. In short: Sosumi is an alert sound introduced by Apple sound designer Jim Reekes in Apple Computer's Macintosh System 7 operating system in 1991. The name is derived from the phrase "so sue me" because of a long running court battle with Apple Corps, the similarly named music company affiliated with the Beatles, regarding the use of music in Apple Inc.'s computer products.

Key takeaways

Sosumi belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sosumi to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sosumi from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sosumi is an alert sound introduced by Apple sound designer Jim Reekes in Apple Computer's Macintosh System 7 operating system in 1991. The name is derived from the phrase "so sue me" because of a long running court battle with Apple Corps, the similarly named music company affiliated with the Beatles, regarding the use of music in Apple Inc.'s computer products.

History

Sosumi is a short alert sound created at Apple Computer in 1989 for the System 7 operating system. The new OS introduced custom system beeps, prompting an Apple engineer to create a sound initially called "Xylophone", described as a "staccato E-flat diminished triad". However, this short beep presented a potential legal problem. During the development of System 7, Apple Computer had reached a settlement with the Beatles' record label, Apple Corps, following an earlier dispute over the inclusion of a sound synthesis chip in the Apple IIGS computer. Under this agreement, Apple Computer was prohibited from using its trademark on "creative works whose principal content is music". All new System 7 sounds were reviewed by Apple's Legal Department. Lawyers objected that the new beep, which had since been renamed to "chime", was "too musical" under the terms of the 1991 settlement. Jim Reekes, the engineer managing new sounds for the OS, grew frustrated with the intense legal scrutiny. He joked that the sound should be named "Let It Beep", a pun on the Beatles' song "Let It Be". When a colleague pointed out that Legal would never approve it, Reekes quipped, "so sue me". After a brief reflection, he resubmitted the sound as sosumi (a homophone for "so sue me"). Careful to submit it in writing to obscure its pronunciation, Reekes falsely informed the Legal Department that the word was Japanese and had nothing to do with music. The sound and its defiant, punning name quickly gained notoriety in computer folklore as a humorous chapter in the long-running Apple Corps v Apple Computer trademark conflict. Sosumi remained a staple in subsequent Apple operating systems for decades. However, the original chime was finally replaced with a new audio sample in the 2020 release of macOS Big Sur. While the new sound was initially labeled "Sosumi" in early public betas, it was eventually renamed to Sonumi in the System Preferences menu. Despite the UI change, the underlying sound file in /System/Library/Sounds/ remains named Sosumi.aiff. This matches Apple's approach to other updated alert sounds in Big Sur (such as "Breeze" and "Crystal"), which also retained their legacy macOS file names (Blow.aiff and Glass.aiff, respectively).

In popular culture The term is in the poem "A Short Address to the Academy of Silence" by Jay Parini. Apple uses the CSS class name "sosumi" for formatting legal fine print on Apple product web pages. The 2002 Disney animated action-adventure film Treasure Planet, Jim Hawkins sees the skeleton of Captain Flint, holding B.E.N.'s missing memory chip in its hand, then he re-inserts the part into B.E.N.'s memory chip, making the Macintosh's Sosumi sound effect, and the planet starts collapsing. In 2006, Geek Squad used this sound in their commercial "Jet Pack", in which a woman was frustrated over her computer.

See also Apple libel dispute with Carl Sagan for a similar revenge-by-pun anecdote

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sosumi

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sosumi claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sosumi before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sosumi ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sosumi

In research: Sosumi appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sosumi in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sosumi is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Apple Corps, Digital audio, Macintosh operating systems user interface, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sosumi outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sosumi in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sosumi means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sosumi out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sosumi in simple terms?

Why does Sosumi matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sosumi?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sosumi.