6 ms·

I'm a mathematician, and never quite got the emphasis on "beauty" that some obsess over. Maybe I'm just too deep into the applied side. But mathematical beauty

I'm a mathematician, and never quite got the emphasis on "beauty" that some obsess over. Maybe I'm just too deep into the applied side. But mathematical beauty to me is unexpected terseness or conciseness in a result. Which is similar to how I would define beautiful source code I think.

marcuslager 9y ago
What you said made me want to write surpisingly terse and concise code. It's what I shall try to do from hereon.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  Terseness and conciseness are great, but should be balanced with readability and ease of editing.
  - marcuslager 9y ago
    Now there are too many rules. I'll just go back to writing crap code.
ice109 9y ago
I got pretty far in math (ms in cs with half of the classes being legit math classes) I never got the obsession either. in general it always felt to me like a bunch of awkward people trying to ascribe aesthetic value to something that had none. it also always felt self-aggrandizing: here look at how beautiful is this game I play where I made up the rules. edit: down votes on hn without comments? boo
- computerex 9y ago
  > I got pretty far in math (ms in cs with half of the classes being legit math classes) I never got the obsession either. Relative to the average Joe on the street you may have gotten "pretty far" in mathematics, but not relative to math majors. I'd expect undergrads to destroy you. And certainly nowhere near the prodigies of mathematics like Gauss or Euler. Since you got pretty far in mathematics, you must know of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity e^(ipi)+1=0 The fact that this one equation relates some of the fundamental constants is pretty profound, and some would say, beautiful. The fact that a human like you or me came up with this true assertion is also, beautiful. Have you heard of Srinivasa Ramanujan?
  - ice109 9y ago
    >I'd expect undergrads to destroy you destroy me? i was a math/physics undergrad and my ms was in SDEs. >e^(ipi)+1=0 this is the dumbest math trope ever. i bet you're the undergrad
    - gizmo686 9y ago
      >this is the dumbest math trope ever. i bet you're the undergrad. Undergrad math major here. Please don't insult us; even we know to cringe when this identity is mentioned as some amazing beauty of math.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  Well, most of your post involves insulting a fairly broad group of people.
Someone 9y ago
In pure math, the journey is the reward; in applied math, the destination is, and how you get there is unimportant. That, IMO, is why applied math rarely is beautiful. Pure math often is because no sane person would spend time doing ugly work that doesn't even lead to useful results. Computational proofs such as that of the four color theorem have changed that a bit. That may be the reason some mathematicians don't accept them as proofs. Similarly, "publish or perish" may have led to more proofs in pure mathematics that are more hard work than inspiration, and of course, zillions of hours have been spent looking for counterexamples of theorems in pure mathematics.

marcuslager 9y ago

What you said made me want to write surpisingly terse and concise code. It's what I shall try to do from hereon.

dwaltrip 9y ago
Terseness and conciseness are great, but should be balanced with readability and ease of editing.
- marcuslager 9y ago
  Now there are too many rules. I'll just go back to writing crap code.

ice109 9y ago

I got pretty far in math (ms in cs with half of the classes being legit math classes) I never got the obsession either. in general it always felt to me like a bunch of awkward people trying to ascribe aesthetic value to something that had none. it also always felt self-aggrandizing: here look at how beautiful is this game I play where I made up the rules. edit: down votes on hn without comments? boo

computerex 9y ago
> I got pretty far in math (ms in cs with half of the classes being legit math classes) I never got the obsession either. Relative to the average Joe on the street you may have gotten "pretty far" in mathematics, but not relative to math majors. I'd expect undergrads to destroy you. And certainly nowhere near the prodigies of mathematics like Gauss or Euler. Since you got pretty far in mathematics, you must know of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity e^(ipi)+1=0 The fact that this one equation relates some of the fundamental constants is pretty profound, and some would say, beautiful. The fact that a human like you or me came up with this true assertion is also, beautiful. Have you heard of Srinivasa Ramanujan?
- ice109 9y ago
  >I'd expect undergrads to destroy you destroy me? i was a math/physics undergrad and my ms was in SDEs. >e^(ipi)+1=0 this is the dumbest math trope ever. i bet you're the undergrad
  - gizmo686 9y ago
    >this is the dumbest math trope ever. i bet you're the undergrad. Undergrad math major here. Please don't insult us; even we know to cringe when this identity is mentioned as some amazing beauty of math.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
joe_the_user 9y ago
Well, most of your post involves insulting a fairly broad group of people.

Someone 9y ago

In pure math, the journey is the reward; in applied math, the destination is, and how you get there is unimportant. That, IMO, is why applied math rarely is beautiful. Pure math often is because no sane person would spend time doing ugly work that doesn't even lead to useful results. Computational proofs such as that of the four color theorem have changed that a bit. That may be the reason some mathematicians don't accept them as proofs. Similarly, "publish or perish" may have led to more proofs in pure mathematics that are more hard work than inspiration, and of course, zillions of hours have been spent looking for counterexamples of theorems in pure mathematics.