Music and Maths

equivariant

Excellent article by fields medal winner Tim Gowers in today's (UK) Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/the-enduring-myth-of-music-and-maths-2307387.html

PaulieBoy

Very good article, thanks for posting.
I play music and love maths, just not that great at either :-)

later12

Interesting article. I wonder if the belief about music nurturing mathematical capability is why the Little Einsteins (anyone with young siblings or kids knows this show) makes so much use of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart.

I think the background correlation the writer mentions is an interesting one. Not only in a familial sense, but in terms of personal character. It might be proposed that the individual who is naturally less gregarious than his schoolmates might be more likely to put his effort into a discipline which requires lots of personal concentration and doesn't call for much interaction with others, like mathematics.

Such an individual might also be naturally drawn to musical instruments which require the same levels of personal (as opposed to group) effort, like the piano.

Of course, that is only one theory. It could also be argued that it works the other way, and a love of instruments like the piano causes young people to become less gregarious as they depend less and less on others for satisfaction.

While it is true that a large proportion of maths enthusiasts are completely tone deaf, one often observes that such individuals tend to pursue interests that are individual-based as opposed to team-based. When I was at university, everybody who was studying pure mathematics seemed to be either into music, philosophy or literature.

I did mathematical finance as a postgrad, and the class socials were almost exclusively attended by those who had previously studied graduated from less quantitative courses (economics, business) than those who had a stronger quant background (engineering, maths, physics). These less quant students were also the more sporty students (relatively speaking). Again, this is just an anecdote, but some research into the correlation between character, mathematical ability and associated talents would be interesting.