标签：philosophy

[Eng] G•H•Hardy: A Mathematician’s Apology

[Eng]G·H·Hardy: A Mathematician’s Apology, translated by Wang Xiyong, Commercial Press, April 2007, 8 yuan Page5 Preface (C·P· Snow) When A Mathematician’s Apology first appeared, Graham Greene wrote in a review that, like Henry James’s handwriting, this book portrayed no less well what a creative artist is like. Page46 For a professional mathematician, finding himself writing about mathematics is a dispiriting experience. A mathematician’s role is to do mathematical things, to prove new theorems and add them to mathematics, not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Politicians look down on political commentators, painters despise art critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians often feel the same way; there is no more…