Abstract
THIS is a slight book. From such cloistral clowning the world sickens. It purports to be an apology for a life misspent in mathematics and for the sort of mathematics on which it has been misspent— ‘real’ mathematics as the entirely useless and to the ’real’ mathematician the more profound part, in contradistinction to the ’trivial’ part, in the culprit's view ugly in some sort of direct ratio to its usefulness. “Anyone who defends his subject will find that he is defending himself,” and the last chapter is autobiographical. The court is of opinion that no such charge ought ever to have been or ever has been brought, and that 4t is unwise for the defendant to undertake the conduct of his own prosecution.
A Mathematician's Apology
By G. H. Hardy. Pp. vii + 94. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1940.) 3s. 6d. net.
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S., F. A Mathematician's Apology. Nature 147, 3–5 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147003a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147003a0
