A Mathematician's Apology Cover
Podcast Mentions

A Mathematician's Apology

G H Hardy

A Mathematician's Apology is the famous essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy. It concerns the aesthetics of mathematics with some personal content and gives the layman an insight into the mind of a working mathematician. It is an attempt to justify and explain, pure mathematics. One of the mai...

Podcasts 1
Quotes 9
StarTalk Radio

It was given to Jeremy Irons by Matthew Brown, and it seems to have helped him resonate with the character of G.H. Hardy, the British mathematician.

"

I think I gave him a mathematician's apology which was a book written by G.H.R.D.

— Episode: The Beauty of Mathematics, with Jeremy I...

Episode: The Beauty of Mathematics, with Jeremy Irons

It was given to Jeremy Irons by Matthew Brown, and it seems to have helped him resonate with the character of G.H. Hardy, the British mathematician.

"

I think I gave him a mathematician's apology which was a book written by G.H.R.D.

and I think that really resonated with him.

G.H.R.D. is the mathematician in Cambridge who discovered...

Yeah, it's a beautiful piece of writing.

Episode: The Beauty of Mathematics, with Jeremy Irons

It was given to Jeremy Irons, who played G.H. Hardy in the movie, and it was thought to have resonated with him, helping him understand the character.

"

I think I gave him a mathematician's apology which was a book written by G.H.R.D.

G.H.R.D. is the mathematician in Cambridge who discovered...

Yeah, it's a beautiful piece of writing.

Episode: Our Mathematical Universe with Grant Sanderson (3B...

It was mentioned in the context of a discussion about the usefulness of mathematics, specifically Hardy's belief that certain areas of math would never be used for warfare, which proved to be incorrect. The book was also described as a lament or apology for the pursuit of mathematics.

"

He was writing this book called a mathematician's lament or just sorry mathematicians apology

He was sort of delighting in the fact that math will never be certain kinds of math and he was highlighting, you know, the theory of prime numbers and relativity will never be used as instruments of war

Note: The book recommendations on this page are discovered automatically from podcast transcripts, and may be incorrect or incomplete.