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Introduction to special issue: Aesthetics in mathematics

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Breitenbach, Angela  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6844-006X
Rizza, D 

Abstract

Mathematicians often appreciate the beauty and elegance of particular theorems, proofs, and definitions, attaching importance not only to the truth but also to the aesthetic merit of their work. As Henri Poincaré [1930, p. 59] put it, mathematical beauty is a ‘real aesthetic feeling that all true mathematicians recognise’. Others went further, regarding mathematical beauty as a key motivation driving the formulation of mathematical proofs and even as a criterion for choosing one proof over another. As Hermann Weyl famously and provocatively declared, ‘My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful’ (cited [Chandrasekhar, 1987, p. 52])....Talk of the beauty of mathematical theorems, proofs, and definitions may thus be commonplace.

Description

Keywords

5003 Philosophy, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields

Journal Title

Philosophia Mathematica

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-8019
1744-6406

Volume Title

26

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)