G. H. Hardy
G. H. Hardy
Godfrey Harold "G. H." Hardy FRS was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth7 February 1877
occupation study innocent
The study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation.
silly creative desire
Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject; no one can draw much consolation from it when he has lost the power or the desire to create; and that is apt to happen to a mathematician rather soon. It is a pity, but in that case he does not matter a great deal anyhow, and it would be silly to bother about him.
real greek literature
Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand... So Greek mathematics is 'permanent', more permanent even than Greek literature.
exercise chess problem
A chess problem is an exercise in pure mathematics.
hymns chess tunes
Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.
real numbers achievement
I count Maxwell and Einstein, Eddington and Dirac, among "real" mathematicians. The great modern achievements of applied mathematics have been in relativity and quantum mechanics, and these subjects are at present at any rate, almost as "useless" as the theory of numbers.
appreciation mind criticism
Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
knowledge science men
It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.
clever school boys
As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or "scholarship candidates," but "Fellows of another college."
degrees mathematics economy
In [great mathematics] there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.
character men done
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.
games sides eleven
Cricket is the only game where you are playing against eleven of the other side and ten of your own.
past men fifty
I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty
art men games
No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game