Mathematical Beauty Quotes - Page 2

• Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Math, Euclid, Sandals

  "Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare" l. 11 (1923)

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• What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. This is a quality which cannot be defined, any more than beauty in art can be defined, but which people who study mathematics usually have no difficulty in appreciating.

  Paul Dirac

  Art, People, Appreciate

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.908, Cambridge University Press

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• The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Law, Simplicity

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• It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Views, Mathematical Equations, Progress

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature" by Paul Dirac, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.

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• The main duty of the historian of mathematics, as well as his fondest privilege, is to explain the humanity of mathematics, to illustrate its greatness, beauty and dignity, and to describe how the incessant efforts and accumulated genius of many generations have built up that magnificent monument, the object of our most legitimate pride as men, and of our wonder, humility and thankfulness, as individuals. The study of the history of mathematics will not make better mathematicians but gentler ones, it will enrich their minds, mellow their hearts, and bring out their finer qualities.

  George Sarton

  Heart, Humility, Pride

  George Sarton (1936). “The study of the history of mathematics and the study of the history of science”

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• My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.

  Tom Stoppard

  Beautiful, Truth, Work

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• It is the peculiar beauty of this method, gentlemen, and one which endears it to the really scientific mind, that under no circumstance can it be of the smallest possible utility.

  Henry John Stephen Smith

  Beauty, Math, Science

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• Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

  Aristotle

  Beautiful, Errors, Order

  "Metaphysics". Book by Aristotle. Book XIII, 1078a.33,

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• It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.

  Paul Dirac

  Taken, Science, Views

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature". Article republished from May 1963 issue of Scientific American, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.

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• The perfection of mathematical beauty is such...that whatsoever is most beautiful and regular is also found to be most useful and excellent.

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

  Beautiful, Perfection, Excellent

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• It is quite clear that beauty does depend on one's culture and upbringing for certain kinds of beauty, pictures, literature, poetry and so on...But mathematical beauty is of a rather different kind. I should say perhaps it is of a completely different kind and transcends these personal factors. It is the same in all countries and at all periods of time.

  Paul Dirac

  Country, Doe, Different

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• As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.

  Blaise Pascal

  Beauty, Healing, Medicine

  Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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