I hear the phrase "math is beautiful" tossed around a lot. Mostly by mathematicians describing their work. I believe it originated with an argument made for the worth of doing pure math by G.H. Hardy in A Mathematician's Apology.
It seems to me that this is utter horse shit. There's nothing "beautiful" about math. It's logical, fascinating, interesting, enlightening, useful when applied to the real world, awe-inspiring, and a good exercise of the mind. But when I want to have an aesthetic experience, I will turn to music, art, film ... etc. And so do 99% of the rest of the world's population if they're interested in having an aesthetic experience at all.
There may be other good reasons to study pure math, but Hardy strikes me as full of shit when he provides this reason as one of them. Sort of grasping at straws.
What, exactly, is he saying is beautiful? The ideas themselves, which exist as propositions chained together in the mind? The typography, which can look like shit if you don't use LaTeX?
Thoughts?
It seems to me that this is utter horse shit. There's nothing "beautiful" about math. It's logical, fascinating, interesting, enlightening, useful when applied to the real world, awe-inspiring, and a good exercise of the mind. But when I want to have an aesthetic experience, I will turn to music, art, film ... etc. And so do 99% of the rest of the world's population if they're interested in having an aesthetic experience at all.
There may be other good reasons to study pure math, but Hardy strikes me as full of shit when he provides this reason as one of them. Sort of grasping at straws.
What, exactly, is he saying is beautiful? The ideas themselves, which exist as propositions chained together in the mind? The typography, which can look like shit if you don't use LaTeX?
Thoughts?
