Dr. Pilar Bayer
Pilar Bayer, professor emeritus of the University of Barcelona, full academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) and secretary of its Section of Experimental Sciences , taught last March 21 at the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Arts of Barcelona the conference “Interacció entre música i matemátiques: passat i present” (Interaction between music and mathematics: past and present), where she tackled some of the most notable interactions between music and mathematics produced in the course of history, considering both the influence that music has had on the development of mathematical concepts as the basic mathematical resources that are involved today in the treatment of sound.
Bayer has dedicated her last scientific works to study this correlation between what are her two vital passions and, to a large extent, professionals. To this, she adds an informative work that has led her to participate in the “Matemáticas en acción” (Mathematics in action) cycle of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Cantabria with the paper “Las matemáticas de la música digital” (Mathematics of digital music), aimed at the students of the centre and teachers of secondary education. Also, last November she offered the piano concert “Una velada con la música de Antônio Carlos Jobim” (An evening with the music of Antônio Carlos Jobim), organized by the Royal Academy with the collaboration of the Royal Artistic Circle of Barcelona, which hosted the session.
For Bayer, “the understanding of the nature of sound is a subject that has been addressed since the dawn of civilization and has led to the creation (direct) or the application (indirect) of mathematical concepts of different nature. This fascinating relationship between music and mathematics as the most relevant mathematical techniques present today in the digital treatment of music, which intervene from its composition and interpretation to its reproduction and storage, is as revealing as it is exciting”.
