G. H. Hardy Quotes - Page 4

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• [Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This may be true; indeed it is probable, since the sensational triumphs of Einstein, that stellar astronomy and atomic physics are the only sciences which stand higher in popular estimation.

  G. H. Hardy

  Triumph, May, Study

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• As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or "scholarship candidates," but "Fellows of another college."

  G. H. Hardy

  Clever, School, Boys

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• The primes are the raw material out of which we have to build arithmetic, and Euclid's theorem assures us that we have plenty of material for the task.

  G. H. Hardy

  Science, Tasks, Raw Materials

  G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.99, Cambridge University Press

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• It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.

  G. H. Hardy

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.117, Cambridge University Press

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• A month's intelligent instruction in the theory of numbes ought to be twice as instructive, twice as useful, and at least 10 times as entertaining as the same amount of 'calculus for engineers'.

  G. H. Hardy

  Intelligent, Months, Instruction

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• There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover. In some the interest lies very deep, in others comparatively near the surface; but there is not one which is not curious and entertaining.

  G. H. Hardy

  Lying, Eye, Science

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• It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.

  G. H. Hardy

  Appreciation, Art, Writing

  G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.61, Cambridge University Press

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• I propose to put forward an apology for mathematics; and I may be told that it needs none, since there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy.

  G. H. Hardy

  Apology, Science, Needs

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• The fact is there are few more popular subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune.

  G. H. Hardy

  Appreciation, Math, People

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.86, Cambridge University Press

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