A Mathematician on Mathematical Research

The famous mathematician G. H. Hardy, who liked to brag that all of his mathematics was useless (even though the notion of a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrum happens to be quite a simple and useful application of mathematics to genetics). For him, the most beautiful mathematics was that which had no application at all. [Of course, he was a Cambridge professor, so we have to consider the source of such comments. :) Go team!]

Here is something Hardy wrote in A Mathematician's Apology about mathematics research, but he could easily have been talking about the vast majority of scientific research (except for some landmark discoveries, etc.) and he had a more general context in mind anyway. He wrote:

"What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence; and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men."


I am not arrogant enough to wake up every day and always agree with this quote, but I am arrogant enough to believe it during specific moments on specific days. The times when I see it in a positive light (feeling like I've produced something lasting and not actually thinking of anything comparative with anyone else) are some of my favorite moments. However, those when I view it from a more negative perspective (which suggests a cynical attitudes of others being lower than me), then it is extremely arrogant and it pretty much just means I need a boot to the head. Quite the dichotomy, eh?

I must admit that there is something about, e.g., going into the Caltech bookstore and seeing my book being sold in it that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling---and at least part of that definitely jives with Hardy's quote.