A Mathematician's ApologyG. 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, 'unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything'. This 'apology', written in 1940, 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 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. |
Contents
Section 1 | 73 |
Section 2 | 77 |
Section 3 | 82 |
Section 4 | 99 |
Section 5 | 105 |
Section 6 | 128 |
Section 7 | 133 |
Section 8 | 136 |
Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus aesthetic Alan St Aubyn ambition Apology applied mathematics arithmetic beautiful Bertrand Russell better Bradman C. P. SNOW called Cambridge career chess problem collaboration comfort creative cricket deal define definite difficult diflicult English Euclid’s theorem Euclidean geometry example Fenner’s figures find fine finest fit five friends G. H. HARDY genius Greek Greek mathematics happy Hardy Hardy’s human integers intellectual justified kind knew lecture less Littlewood mathematical beauty mathematical ideas mathematical proof mathematical reality mathematical theorem matician matics modern never OLD BRANDY once Oxford particular pattern physicists physiology play poet poetry prime numbers professional proof pure geometry pure mathematics Pythagoras Pythagoras’s theorem question Ramanujan real mathe real mathematician real mathematics real tennis reflection rooms scientific seems sense serious significant suppose talent theory of numbers things thought tician tion Trinity Tripos trivial trivial mathematics Whitehead word Wrangler young Einstein young man’s