Count me in: how mathematics explains music - Sarah Hart

Wednesday, 12 August 2026, 5pm to 6pm

The great mathematician Gottfried Leibniz said that music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. We love it, in other words, because it is the mathematics of the subconscious.

In this lecture we’ll bring that mathematics into the open and see how mathematical ideas are woven into every aspect of music. We’ll explore the beautiful number patterns underlying harmony, the geometrical symmetries of melody, and the 2000-year-old algorithm that predicts the rhythms most favoured by musicians across the world.

Sarah Hart is a mathematician and author. She is Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Birkbeck College (University of London), and Fellow of Gresham College, London. Her first book, Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Book Prize. Her forthcoming book on the resonances between mathematics and music will be published in 2027.

Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register to attend in person.

The lecture will be broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on Wednesday 2 September at 5-6 pm and any time after (no need to register for the online version).

The Oxford Mathematics Vicky Neale Public Lectures are a partnership between the Clay Mathematics Institute, PROMYS and Oxford Mathematics. The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

Speaker(s): Sarah Hart (Birkbeck)

Series: Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures

Venue: Mathematical Institute - L1 - L1 Mathematical Institute Woodstock Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6GG United Kingdom

Department: Mathematical Institute (Department)

Organiser: Dyrol Lumbard

Host: Dyrol Lumbard

Register here: https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/81528

More info: