Mathematical Beauty Quotes

• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Math, Perfection

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

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• Math is the only place where truth and beauty mean the same thing.

  Danica McKellar

  Mean, Math, Science

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• Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Western Philosophy, Mathematics

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

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• The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.

  Henri Poincare

  Beautiful, Math, Science

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.318, Modern Library

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• The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

  Aristotle

  Science, Engineering, Order

  Aristotle (2012). “The Metaphysics”, p.202, Roger Bishop Jones

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• The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

  G. H. Hardy

  Beauty, Beautiful, Math

  A Mathematician's Apology ch. 10 (1940)

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• I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.

  Paul Erdos

  Beautiful, Math, Numbers

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• ...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know

  Henri Poincare

  Math, Numbers, Feelings

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• The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitations; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

  Aristotle

  Beautiful, Education, Math

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• It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.

  Paul Dirac

  Mathematical Equations, Important, Fit

  "Magic numbers: can maths equations be beautiful?" by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. November 21, 2016.

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• The mathematician is fascinated with the marvelous beauty of the forms he constructs, and in their beauty he finds everlasting truth.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Beauty, Truth, Math

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• Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

  G. H. Hardy

  Beauty, Math, Apology

  A Mathematician's Apology ch. 10 (1940)

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• As for everything else, so for a mathematical theory: beauty can be perceived but not explained.

  Arthur Cayley

  Beauty, Math, Theory

  Arthur Cayley (1895). “The Collected Mathematical Papers of Arthur Cayley”

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• When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Beauty, Beautiful, Niece

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• A physical law must possess mathematical beauty.

  Paul Dirac

  Law, Mathematical

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• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the georgeous 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, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Truth, Science

  Philosophical Essays (1910) no. 4

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• The tantalizing and compelling pursuit of mathematical problems offers mental absorption, peace of mind amid endless challenges, repose in activity, battle without conflict, refuge from the goading urgency of contingent happenings, and the sort of beauty changeless mountains present to senses tried by the present day kaleidoscope of events.

  Morris Kline

  Teaching, Math, Challenges

  Morris Kline (1964). “Mathematics in Western Culture”, p.470, Oxford University Press

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• Wherever there is number, there is beauty.

  Proclus

  Math, Numbers

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• The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty.

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

  Education, Philosophy, Heart

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1992). “On Growth and Form”, p.326, Cambridge University Press

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• A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

  Paul Dirac

  Data, Ugly, Fit

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• One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.

  Philip J. Davis

  Beautiful, Math, Science

  Philip J. Davis, William G. Chinn (1985). “3.1416 and all that”, Birkhauser

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• Why are numbers beautiful? It’s like asking why is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful.
  If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful.
  If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.

  Paul Erdos

  Beautiful, Education, Math

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• The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Excellence, Exaltation

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.229, Routledge

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• Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... For example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Example, Needs

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  A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Beauty, Spiritual

  Letter of 1950, as quoted in "The New York Times", March 29, 1972.

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