# Composers and Mathematicians



## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Since we've already had 5000 threads about composers being "linked" to painters/sculptors/novelists/whatevers, I am now starting to feel the urge to "link" composers with mathematicians. Amazingly, many similarities could be found between the famed folks of these two disciplines.

Off the top of head:

*Bach - Leibniz: *Both were universal geniuses in their respective fields and had everlasting influence. Both also had an unwavering faith in their God and shaped part of their work based on this faith (in the case of Leibniz, it was his philosophy).

*Haydn - Euler: *Both were jolly fellas who were masters at being super prolific, as well as sort of "defining" things. Haydn with symphonies and string quartets, Euler with mathematical notation and terminology. Haydn wrote hundreds of symphonies, Euler wrote a few million pages of treatises (or so I've heard)

*Schubert - Ramanujan: *Both had natural genius that flowed like water. Both died in their early thirties.

*Beethoven - Hilbert: *Both were grumpy ***holes who screamed at people and fired their poor subordinates, but whose egos still won them a significant place in history.

*Mozart - Dirac: *Both were playful tricksters who were as much trollish as they were intelligent. Fortunately for Dirac, he didn't live in the 18th century, and, as a result, he didn't experience much sadness and so he didn't become a serious and respectful individual like Mozart did at the end of Amadeus.

*Sorabji - Newton:* Both loved to write in Latin. Both tried to make things as confusing and complicated as possible. Both were angry individuals who locked themselves away from society and whose sexuality is still the subject of much scholarly debate.

*Sebastian de Albero - Delfino Codazzi: *Both were phenomenally underrated Italian (or Spanish, I'm not sure) supreme geniuses who are still forgotten by history.

What about you guys? Any "links" that you've observed?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Do we have to link personalities? Cant we rather talk about their work?


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

I like Euler/Haydn. 

Gauss and Bach tend to inspire the same kind of hushed quasi-religious awe.

Klein wrote of Abel '...although Abel shared with many mathematicians a complete lack of musical talent, I will not sound absurd if I compare his kind of productivity and his personality with Mozart's. Thus one might erect a monument to this divinely inspired mathematician like the one to Mozart in Vienna: simple and unassuming he stands there listening, while graceful angels float about, playfully bringing him inspiration from another world'.


Now who is music's Erdos? Maybe Satie?


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> Do we have to link personalities? Cant we rather talk about their work?


You can link whatever you want.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'd obviously heard of Dirac and remembered some vague facts about him, but I looked his name up briefly where it said: "he described the behaviour of the electron, including its spin", but I thought it said: "he _was_ described as having the behaviour of an electron, including its spin", and I thought, "yeah, that fits Mozart."


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

jalex said:


> I like Euler/Haydn.
> 
> Gauss and Bach tend to inspire the same kind of hushed quasi-religious awe.
> 
> ...


Haha, I was right about to reply and say Satie immediately before you edited your post.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Has anyone read the book: Godel, Escher and Bach?

That is a great connection, based on the nature of each great man's work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

^ I've read somewhere that Hofstadter relates Contrapunctus XIV to one of Godel's incompleteness theorems. Haven't read the actual book though.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I can definitely recommend it, though unfortunately I read it too far back to recall the specific details you mention.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

^^OK thanks, requested it from my library.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Have we got any musical equivalents to Galois (who cares about the maths and personality - we need someone who died young in a duel!)?


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Have we got any musical equivalents to Galois (who cares about the maths and personality - we need someone who died young in a duel!)?


Stradella!

Edit: maybe not (I should research _before_ posting)


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Another influx of even more worthless nonsense:

*Brahms - Handel - Ostrogradsky: *Each one of them weighed five times as much as Bertrand Russell.

*Chopin - Russell: *Both were very skinny and had _the exact same_ haircut (google some images of Bertie when he was in his younger years if you don't believe me).

*Liszt - Poincare: *Both are pretentious has-beens that no one cares about anymore.

At this point, my links are starting to degrade into pure insanity. I'll stop. 'Onest.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> Has anyone read the book: Godel, Escher and Bach?
> 
> That is a great connection, based on the nature of each great man's work.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach


I am working my way through this fascinating book. Parts of it are not easy going and need to be reread a few times, but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Just last week I picked up another book by Hofstadter titled "le Ton beau de Marot" subtitled 'In Praise of the Music of Language'. It is D. H.'s personal tribute to the Sixteenth Century French Poet Clement Marot. To quote in part from the dust jacket; "The rich harvest is represented here by 88 wildly diverse variations on Marots little theme...Not merely a set of translations of one poem {the book} is an autobiographical essay, a love letter to the French language, a series of musings on life, loss and death - But most of all, it celebrates the limitless creativity fired by a passion for the music of words".

This 600+ page gem, published in 1997 and priced at $30.00 US was found by me at a Library sale for $1.00. Surely the bargain of the Month.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

*Chausson *and *Fourier*.

Fourier used to wrap himself in blankets for health reasons (in his belief), only to one day trip and fall down the stairs to his death. Chausson died when he lost control of his bicycle and crashed into a brick wall.



jalex said:


> Gauss and Bach tend to inspire the same kind of hushed quasi-religious awe.


Yes. *Bach* and *Gauss* were both the greatest geniuses in their respective fields.



Dodecaplex said:


> *Liszt - Poincare: *Both are pretentious has-beens that no one cares about anymore.


No.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

This may be a bit of a strech, but John von Neumann and Mahler? Both were at the fringes of modernism and traditionalism (Neumann specifically with quantum mechanics, computer science), and both looked to other sources of knowledge for truth as well (Mahler to Nietzche, Neumann to Greek/Latin texts).


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## pablofregoso (Apr 8, 2012)

You could compare the *Bernoulli* family and the *Strauss* family, although for that to be completely accurate Mahler would have to be Johann the II's great-great-grandson and Ennio Morricone Mahler's grandson 

Also, I think Newton did the exact opposite of making things complicated, he has looking for a *simple* way of understanding the universe. He accomplished that so well that by his 26th birthday he had discovered the laws of motion, the law of universal gravitation and the way light behaves among many other things. For that he had to come up with differential and integral calculus which, if you study a little, you realize it's an extremely elegant, simple and intelligent approach. I find it imposible to compare him with anyone, maybe if Beethoven was born in the fist century and still composed his 9th (inventing the instruments he needed to play it) I would pair the two up.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Have you looked at his Principia? It reads as if Newton wrote the entire thing just to complain to someone about his erectile dysfunction.


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## pablofregoso (Apr 8, 2012)

Dodecaplex said:


> Have you looked at his Principia? It reads as if Newton wrote the entire thing just to complain to someone about his erectile dysfunction.


hahaha yes I have and yes it does, but the man was trying to explain certain things that could *only*be explained in such a complicated way, in the end it is the simplest way he could explain it. It's just another lenguaje, and I'm not only talking about old weird English, but mathematics. If you wish to understand it you have to learn how to speak it first, I am a mechanical engineer and have a tough time reading it but that is only because of my own limitations.

If you gave me the score for piano of twinkle, twinkle little star I would tell you that it is too complicated and that I have no idea what all those funny lines and dots stand for. Does that make twinkle, twinkle little star complicated?


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Just found another example.

Weierstrass and Schumann: A terrifying function and a terrifying music.


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