Pilar Bayer, Emeritus Professor at the Universitat de Barcelona, founder of the Barcelona Number Theory Seminar, member of the Governing Board of the Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques, and Numerary Member and Vice-President of the Section of Experimental Sciences of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (READ), led on 11 December the final session of the HarmoniesUPC series. The event took place in the Assembly Hall of the Higher School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa, a centre affiliated with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, under the title «Rhythms and Probabilities: The Mathematics of Jazz.»
Dr Pilar Bayer
In line with the aims of the series, the session explored the connection between music, science and critical thinking through interdisciplinary cultural experiences. On this occasion, it examined the relationship between jazz and mathematics, and how rhythms, patterns and musical structures engage in dialogue with complex mathematical concepts, as explained by the organizers. The event was introduced by Jordi Voltas, Director of the centre, and also featured the participation of Ignasi Terraza, an internationally renowned jazz pianist, the UPC Jazz Combo and the UPC Terrassa Choir. All of them contributed to demonstrating the theses presented by Bayer, combining outreach, live music and an intense connection with the audience.
Beyond her long and distinguished career as a lecturer and researcher, Bayer is a well-known communicator of the relationship between music and mathematics. In this regard, last October she published the article «The Mathematical Basis of Digital Sound» in the journal «Serra d’Or», in which she examined the connection between mathematics and music across centuries of scientific and artistic thought, analysing the numerical laws that make it possible to understand and reproduce sound. In other talks on the subject, always from an outreach perspective, the expert has highlighted the simultaneous use of musical and mathematical languages. She has also presented the mathematical concepts inherent in new technologies that enable both the reproduction of music in digital formats and its generation through artificial intelligence techniques.
The academic was invested last November as magistra honoris causa by the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Bayer is also a Numerary Member of the Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts de Barcelona and of the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. She has been awarded the Narcís Monturiol Medal for Scientific and Technological Merit and, last December, received the Creu de Sant Jordi, the highest distinction granted by the Government of Catalonia.
