Beauty in Experience
Some degree of delight in the manipulation of numbers and symbols is probably required to engage in any mathematics. Given the utility of mathematics in science and engineering, it is likely that any technological society will actively cultivate these aesthetics, certainly in its philosophy of science if nowhere else.
The most intense experience of mathematical beauty for most mathematicians comes from actively engaging in mathematics. It is very difficult to enjoy or appreciate mathematics in a purely passive way—in mathematics there is no real analogy of the role of the spectator, audience, or viewer. Bertrand Russell referred to the austere beauty of mathematics.
Read more about this topic: Mathematical Beauty
Famous quotes containing the words beauty in, beauty and/or experience:
“These beings have no other profession than to cultivate the idea of beauty in their person, to satisfy their passions, to feel and to think.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!”
—Henry Timrod (1828–1867)
“My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)