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Title: A Mathematician's Apology by G.H. Hardy ISBN: 0-521-42706-1 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (15 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A major let-down
Comment: I was really looking forward to reading this book, being familiar with Hardy and having read two books on Ramanujan; but the book was very disappointing. The foreword by Snow is almost as long as the book itself, and really doesn't add anything of note. Instead of a foreword one could use footnotes explaining the frequent cricket terms and names of people no longer recognized by the public.
What does one learn about what math is, why people become mathematicians, the artistic beauty of math, etc?
Very little. Hardy wrote the book for the public, and basically feels that anything interesting he could say about these issues would be unintelligible. All that Hardy says can be summed up as
1) I became a mathematician because it is the only thing I could do well, 2) pure mathematics is useless but harmless [he even says that relativity theory was good because it couldn't be used for war - remember the book was written before WWII]
3) doing mathematics requires creativity, and thus is done by younger people (but Hardy himself was most creative in his 40s).
Since Hardy was already in his sixties when he wrote the book he was past his prime, and says so several times.
If you are interested in why people do math and how math can be beautiful, you won't find much in this book.
Even if you are specificaly interested in Hardy and English math at the turn of the 20th century there are much better books available.
Rating: 5
Summary: A unique book, should be read by everybody
Comment: Hardy was a man that comes along rarely in life, and this book is an even rarer portrait of how men like him think. As a mathematician, Hardy was excellent, his collaboration produced much fruitful work, and he is perhaps most renowned for discovering the young protege Ramanujan. But this book is not really about his work, but about his views on life, and mathematics, as a whole. Considering how little people in American society know about mathematics and its practitioners, this book, which is emminently readable, will give all people a unique view of what some mathematicians think like. The book is short, but interesting from first page to last. Hardy was past his mathematical prime when he wrote this book, but this book probably is his most influencial he ever wrote.
The introduction by C.P. Snow is more like a short biography about Hardy, and it's about the same length as Hardy's actual text. It gives us insights into what one of Hardy's friends thought of him, and it also frames the life Hardy was living in as he wrote this book.
Hardy's opinions are strong, and undoubtedly every reader will disagree here and there with him. But he shows the reader some of the gems of mathematics, and perhaps the reader will be able to appreciate those even without formal mathematical training. He also talks about war and what he thinks of it. Whatever the reader thinks about Hardy's opinions, this book gives us the opportunity to glimpse into the mind of an artist - one different than the usual meaning attached to the word, but one nonetheless - and experience a part of human life not experienced by many - the wonders of mathematics.
Rating: 4
Summary: One should not need an apology
Comment: What is discomforting to me about this book is simply that Hardy decided to write it. Hardy describes that people do what they do because they do it well (the so called standard apology), that they do it because they don't do anything else well, or they didn't have a chance to do anything else. Hardy also exclaims that pure mathematics has no utilitarian value, and does not benefit society.
But why can't mathematicians study math for the love of the subject? What is so bad about not caring about utilitarian value? Why should we have to justify our existence to others? The fact that Hardy seems so compelled to justify his existence, and all he comes up with is benefiting a pool of knowledge in the platonic realm, is almost pathetic. Why couldn't he have studied math for his own self-interest? This book would have been all the more refreshing if he stated he loved working with Ramanujan and Littlewood, and that this in itself is a justification, and not some means to some cloudy end.
Other areas of the book are equally disappointing. We hear the commonplace notion that after 40, one's mathematical abilities are pretty much over. Yet this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without confidence in your abilities, how do you expect to get anywhere? What about Erdos, who still actively did math up until his death? Wiles was over 40 when he finally resolved Fermat's Last theorem.
You may wonder with this criticism, why I chose 4 stars. This is because, for all its drawbacks, it is at least an interesting account of Hardy's relationship with math. It is however, disheartening how fatalistic he is. It would have been refreshing to hear something of pride, not pretentious or sneering, but pride exclaiming that nobody should ever feel the need to write an apology for their existence.
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Title: The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel, Robert Kanigel ISBN: 0671750615 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A Course of Pure Mathematics (Cambridge Mathematical Library) by G.H. Hardy ISBN: 0521092272 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics by William Dunham ISBN: 014014739X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Man Who Loved Only Numbers : The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman ISBN: 0786884061 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 12 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire ISBN: 0309085497 Publisher: Joseph Henry Press Pub. Date: 23 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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