Beauty in Mathematics

Abstract

"Rightly viewed, mathematics possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, devoid of appeal to any part of our weaker nature, devoid of the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." The true spirit of delight, exaltation, and the experience of being more than Man, which is the test of the highest excellence, can be discovered in mathematics just as easily as in poetry."