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
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
study conflict ancient
In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras, and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and the youngest of all.
ambition leaving ambitious
A person’s first duty, a young person’s at any rate, is to be ambitious, and the noblest ambition is that of leaving behind something of permanent value.
bombs bayonets merciful
Bombs are probably more merciful than bayonets
men profound he-man
There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain.
appreciation math names
Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune; and there are probably more people really interested in mathematics than in music. Appearances suggest the contrary, but there are easy explanations. Music can be used to stimulate mass emotion, while mathematics cannot; and musical incapacity is recognized (no doubt rightly) as mildly discreditable, whereas most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity