Broadly speaking, pure mathematics is mathematics which studies entirely abstract concepts. From the eighteenth century onwards, this was a recognized category of mathematical activity, sometimes characterized as speculative mathematics, and at variance with the trend towards meeting the needs of navigation, astronomy, physics, engineering, and so on. Another insightful view put forth is that pure mathematics is not necessarily applied mathematics.
Read more about Pure Mathematics: Generality and Abstraction, Purism, Subfields
Famous quotes containing the words pure and/or mathematics:
“In a pure society, the subject of marriage would not be so often avoided,—from shame and not from reverence, winked out of sight, and hinted at only; but treated naturally and simply,—perhaps simply avoided like the kindred mysteries. If it cannot be spoken of for shame, how can it be acted of? But, doubtless, there is far more purity, as well as more impurity, than is apparent.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)