Musician Dan Snaith Has a Strong Connection to Mathematics

May 10, 2010

Musician Dan Snaith, who performed with his group Caribou in Washington, D.C. in early May, 2010, also has an intense interest in mathematics and mathematicians. And he isn't not shy about telling you why.

Having earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Imperial College London, Snaith, 32, told the Washington Post that "Mathematicians are some of the most passionate, most emotionally intense people you'll ever meet. People think of them as being like accountants or something, but they're a bunch of [expletive] lunatics! The most fascinating characters I've ever met are mathematicians."

His music, he observed, is unpredictable and spontaneous. "But those are some of the things I loved about mathematics," he said. "It's unfortunate"that mathematics is this totally opaque discipline. [Most] people have never been able to see the interesting side of it." Mathematics, he said, "changes character after a certain point."

"You really have these eureka moments," Snaith said, about his twin loves. "It's impossible to understand or see what's going on. You're fiddling around making music or doing mathematics and things aren't working—just a lot of trial and error in both of these disciplines, but then things just snap together. You can't make sense of something, but then when it works, it works on a gut level. You get this gut understanding of it."

Source: The Washington Post (May 7, 2010)