A mathematician's apology
1940
- mathematics
- addresses, essays, lectures
- pure mathematics
- philosophy
- wiskunde
- matematica
- qa7 .h3 1992
- 510.1
- 31.01
The story
G. H. Hardy was one of this century's finest mathematical thinkers, renowned among his contemporaries as a 'real mathematician … the purest of the pure'. He was also (as C. P. Snow recounts in his Foreword to the 1967 edition) 'unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything'. This 'apology', written in 1940 as his mathematical powers were declining, offers a brilliant and engaging account of mathematics as very much more than a science; when it was first published, Graham Greene hailed it alongside Henry James's notebooks as 'the best account of what it was like to be a creative artist'. C. P. Snow's Foreword gives sympathetic and witty insights into Hardy's life, with its rich store of anecdotes concerning his collaboration with the brilliant Indian mathematician Ramanujan, his aphorisms and idiosyncrasies, and his passion for cricket. This is a unique account of the fascination of mathematics and of one of its most compelling exponents in modern times.
What it’s like
Dry, lucid and quietly candid, this short essay reads like a late-evening conversation with a brilliant, cranky older man who has decided to be honest about his own vanity. Hardy's prose is clean and aphoristic, with sharp asides, gentle self-mockery and the occasional flash of Edwardian bite, and nothing about it is lush: the pleasure comes from sentences that are exact and rhythmic, like a well-cut suit. The mood is wry melancholy, a meditation on fading powers and the lasting beauty of ideas that need no applied purpose, and the emotional register stays intellectual and reflective rather than sentimental. Snow's foreword adds warmer, anecdotal texture, portraits of an eccentric don, his friendship with Ramanujan and his devotion to cricket, so the reading moves from crisp argument to affectionate character sketch. It is short enough for one unhurried sitting on a rainy afternoon or a slow train journey. Entirely free of violence, sex or fear; the only tension is the author's sense of his own decline, handled with dignity. Suited to readers who enjoy mathematics, memoir-essays, and the feeling of listening to a sharp mind speak plainly about why it loves its work.
More books like A mathematician's apology
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved A mathematician's apologyand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
