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A Mathematician's Apology is a 1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy which defends the pursuit of mathematics for its own sake. Central to Hardy's "apology" – in the sense of a formal justification or defence (as in Plato's Apology of Socrates) – is an argument
- G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow
- 1940
Jun 5, 2013 · Summary. IT was a perfectly ordinary night at Christ's high table, except that Hardy was dining as a guest. He had just returned to Cambridge as Sadleirian professor, and I had heard something of him from young Cambridge mathematicians.
This 'apology', written in 1940 as his mathematical powers were declining, 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'.
- J. F. Randolph, G. H. Hardy
- 1942
He wasn't a great genius, as Einstein and Rutherford were. He said, with his usual clarity, that if the word meant anything he was not a genius at all. At his best, he said, he was for a short time the fifth best pure mathematician in the world.
This book begins by explaining why some men pursue mathematics, others literary studies, others chess or cricket. Mr Hardy reiterates his famous dictum that all good mathematics is useless - "the study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation."
“The Apology” is Plato’s account of the three speeches that Socrates gave at his trial for false teaching and heresy in 399 B.C.E. At the age of 71, Socrates fought at his trial not for his life, but for the truth.
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Socrates, Roman mural 1 st century. The Apology. by Plato. I do not know, men of Athens, how my 17 accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true.
