Mathematicians Do Math for Its Own Sake

4- As an example, consider the practice of mathematics. Mathematics is in the first place a language in which we discuss those parts of the real world which can be described by numbers or by similar relations of order. But with the workaday business of translating the facts into this language there naturally goes, in those who are good at it, a pleasure in the activity itself. They find the language richer than its bare content; what is translated comes to mean less to them than the logic and the style of saying it; and from these overtones grows mathematics as a literature in its own right. Mathe� matics in this sense, pure mathematics, is a form of poetry, which has the same relation to the prose of practical mathematics as poetry has to prose in any other language. This element of poetry, the delight in exploring the medium for its own sake, is an essential ingredient in the creative process.

Notes:

They work the art as if it were poetry, much of it without practical application, but for the beauty of mathematics.

Folksonomies: ionian enchantment mathematics art two cultures discovery

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Science and Human Values

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bronowski , Jacob (1965), Science and Human Values, Faber and Faber, Retrieved on 2011-04-19

Folksonomies: science philosophy two cultures

Triples

24 MAY 2011

Knowledge for its Own Sake

What Makes a Person Predisposed To Science > Example/Illustration > Mathematicians Do Math for Its Own Sake
Successful scientists do their work for its own sake, enjoying the beauty of ideas. Mathematicians work in a type of poetry of ideas, a literature of numbers.

Folksonomies: science research knowledge

Schemas

29 JAN 2013

The Two Cultures

Memes concerning science and art, how they approach reality, how they are different, and how they are similar.

Folksonomies: science art two cultures