The Quadrivium

The idea that music and the cosmos are intrinsically connected has very deep roots in many human cultures. In Western cultures, one of the most long-lasting ways that this relationship manifest was in the Quadrivium. These four "number arts" were the ancestors of modern sciences and consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Learning how number and numerical relationships worked across these disciplines allowed educated individuals to see the inherent order, or "harmony," of nature. It is no wonder that many great astronomers from antiquity to the 18th century, from Ptolemy to Kepler and beyond, wrote treatises on both music and astronomy. In this episode we discuss some of the implications of this education system both on scientific thinking during its time and on our modern education systems. 

 

References

Miranda Lundy et. al., Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology

Orbital Resonance

Peter Pesic and Alex Volmar, "Pythagorean Longings"

Eugene Wigner, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences"