“The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.”

A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 29, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the wor…" by G. H. Hardy?
G. H. Hardy photo
G. H. Hardy 20
British mathematician 1877–1947

Related quotes

G. H. Hardy photo
G. H. Hardy photo
Martin Gardner photo

“A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?”

Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher

The Dover Math and Science Newsletter http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ May 16, 2011

Marston Morse photo

“Discovery in mathematics is not a matter of logic. It is rather the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and in which unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.”

Marston Morse (1892–1977) American mathematician

Attributed in Princeton & Mathematics: A Notable Record, Chaplin, Virginia, Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 9, 1958 http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/finding_aids/mathoral/pmcxpaw.htm,

Vladimir I. Arnold photo

“They first began teaching their ugly scholastic pseudo-mathematics to their students, then to schoolchildren (forgetting Hardy's warning that ugly mathematics has no permanent place under the Sun).”

Vladimir I. Arnold (1937–2010) Russian mathematician

"On teaching mathematics", as translated by A. V. Goryunov, in Russian Mathematical Surveys Vol. 53, no. 1 (1998), p. 229–236.
Context: In the middle of the twentieth century it was attempted to divide physics and mathematics. The consequences turned out to be catastrophic. Whole generations of mathematicians grew up without knowing half of their science and, of course, in total ignorance of any other sciences. They first began teaching their ugly scholastic pseudo-mathematics to their students, then to schoolchildren (forgetting Hardy's warning that ugly mathematics has no permanent place under the Sun).

Joseph Joubert photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Richard Courant photo

“It becomes the urgent duty of mathematicians, therefore, to meditate about the essence of mathematics, its motivations and goals and the ideas that must bind divergent interests together.”

Richard Courant (1888–1972) German American mathematician (1888-1972)

Richard Courant, "Mathematics in the Modern World", Scientific American, Vol 211, (Sep 1964), p. 42

Thomas Hardy photo

“To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Statement (5 August 1888), as quoted in The life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1928 (1962) by Florence Emily Hardy

Matt Haig photo

Related topics