Sonia Fernández-Vidal: "Mathematics has a beauty that, once you understand it, you enjoy it immensely."
He grew up in Mataró, studied at the same school where his father worked as a teacher, and a book about biographies of scientists sparked his vocation.
Sonia Fernández-Vidal (Barcelona, 1978) holds a PhD in information and quantum optics from the UAB. She is also a writer and science communicator.
She grew up in Mataró, in the Palau neighborhood. She attended the Angela Bransuela School, where her father worked as a teacher. "I had a great time, I loved learning. I was one of those kids who loves school." She immediately became interested in science. "I remember waiting in the library for my father to finish work, and when I was very young, a book fell into my hands: Bibliography of scientists. It was for children and was illustrated by Pilarín Bayés, with whom I would later make a book when I grew up. These things of destiny... And I remember that it had a huge impact on me, because I thought, what important people. And from then on, I said: I want to be a scientist."
She was a girl who read a lot, especially fantasy books: "Roald Dahl, Michael Ende... Then, when I grew up, Tolkien. Literature opened doors to new worlds for me," she says. She liked symbolic play. "We had fewer toys than children today. This probably encouraged our imagination a little more."
When she grew up, she liked role-playing games. "I did have that geeky side. There's a prejudice that scientists are very rigid, and I think nothing could be further from the truth. When you're doing science, when you're doing research, you're like an explorer. You're moving through terrain where no one has ever been before. So, creativity, imagination, is the tool that is used to keep moving forward," she explains.
Daughter of teachers
After school, she studied English, music, and piano. Also, tennis and swimming. Is music closely related to science? "Very much. The vast majority of mathematicians play the piano or the violin or paint. Since the Middle Ages, we've separated science and humanities, but they're closely related. Wouldn't it be wonderful, for example, to have an artistic-mathematical baccalaureate?"
She is the daughter of teachers. Her mother is a special education teacher, and her father is a history teacher. "I come from a family of teachers. My paternal grandparents were also teachers, and my uncles. It runs in my veins. So, the teaching side of things, which I love so much, comes from here."
He has a sister who's 20 months older. "She studied political science and traveled a lot with international organizations. She's been to Afghanistan, Morocco... now she's here, with the Department of International Collaboration at the Generalitat (Catalan government)." They have a very close relationship. "We had the same group of friends when we were teenagers. We're night and day in terms of character, but I imagine it's a bit of a game, isn't it? You find your place where the other has left you space."
Is math difficult? "Math has a beauty that the moment you understand it, you enjoy it immensely. It's like when you study piano, you have to do stairs, arpeggios... until one day you start playing jazz. Science also has this side," he asserts.
He has two children, ages 5 and 7. I ask him how he views the current way of teaching math. "There's still a lot to do. My son is learning his multiplication tables. He's still memorizing these, as always. I look for symmetries so that I can enjoy them a little more. But it's what we were saying before: you have to make arpeggios and ladders to end up making jazz. It's the toll, and there's a trace of an ever-increasing challenge."