FANGLIZHI
tained, and the curtain
fulls.
Bertrand Russell described mathematics this way:
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but a supreme
beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without ap–
peal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings
of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stem per–
fection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of de–
light, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the
touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as
surely as in poetry.
657
There are two sharply contrasting aspects to the study of those nat–
ural sciences which include astronomy and physics. On the one hand, sci–
ence is the basis for all technological advancement, and thus has enor–
mous practical value to society, in that technological progress greatly fa–
cilitates the production of goods and products. On the other hand, the
motivation
for scientific research is completely divorced from the goal of
technological advancement itself The latter is invariably concerned with
practical applications, whereas the former resembles more an artistic en–
deavor - it arises from the search for and the creation of beauty.
Copernicus states clearly at the outset of his landmark work,
De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres):
Among the many various and literary artistic pursuits which invigorate
men's minds, the strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think,
promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects, most
deserving to be known.
The French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincare is much
revered in the scientific world, despite the fact that Lenin once pro–
nounced him "a great scientist but a negligible philosopher." Poincare's
comment concerning motivation in scientific research has become one of
the classic statements on the subject:
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful: he studies it
because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If
nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if
nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living ...
Intellectual beauty is sufficient unto itself, and it is for its sake, more
perhaps than for the future good of humanity, that the scientist de-
