What we talk about when we talk about math

Abstract: In 1864, the mathematician J. J. Sylvester wrote: "May not Music be described as the Mathematics of the sense, Mathematics as Music of the reason?...Music the dream, Mathematics the working life.”

While music and math tend to be linked in the popular imagination, music is notably easy to share with an audience, while math is notably not. What does it feel like to do math? Can we share the feeling of the dream without using the technical language of the working life? In fact, the experience of doing mathematics probably feels different to each of us. Math is famous for being abstract, and each of us develops a way to represent those abstractions in our own head. Can we describe what we are doing? Can we see some universal patterns in how we feel as we do math? We will share an array of mathematical stories, to study what mathematics does for us, and what we do when we engage with it.

Host or Publisher CENTRE DE RECHERCHES MATHÉMATIQUES