Music and Mathematics
By Charlotte Stace
CosmoCaixa brings us the exhibition Music and Mathematics. According to them, music and mathematics share many similarities. Music excites us mathematically and, thanks to mathematics, we understand the purest essence of music. This exhibition offers a sound journey that, starting from absolute silence, investigates the sound of nature: the music of matter and the mathematics that govern musical patterns.
It is accepted that Pythagoras and his disciples were the first to establish a direct link between music and mathematics. Since then, many other mathematicians have attempted to refine the relationships between these two worlds.
Both disciplines study abstract objects, have complex structures, manipulation rules, well-defined notation and are absolutely precise in their results. But their relationship goes far beyond the skills necessary for their study. Mathematics is present in all aspects of music, from the physics of sound to the construction of instruments, from rhythmic patterns to tonal harmony, from classical to electronic music.